Prognosis of 2,800 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer diagnosed during 1975-94 and treated at the Norwegian Radium Hospital

Background Ovarian cancer patients have a poor prognosis. In Norway, however, the prognosis has improved steadily since the 1950s, the age-adjusted 5-year relative survival reaching 37% in 1989-93. The aim of the present study was to explore the prognosis of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer diagnosed during 1975-94 (the prepaclitaxel period) and treated at The Norwegian Radium Hospital. Method. Relative risks (RR) of dying and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were derived from multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models. Results. A total of 2,769 patients with epithelial ovarian cancer were included in the present study. Altogether 54% of the patients were diagnosed with advanced stage disease (stages III and IV), whereas 32% were diagnosed with stage I disease. The prognosis of the patients improved from the 1970s to the 1990s, mainly due to increased short-term survival. In multivariate survival analysis, the RR of dying decreased with period of diagnosis. An RR of 0.77 (95% CI=0.66-0.89) was seen in 1990-94 compared with 1975-79. Conclusion. The short-term survival of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer improved from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. However, no major improvement in the lone-term survival was seen.