Prognostic impact of the time interval from primary surgery to intravenous chemotherapy in high grade serous ovarian cancer

• We examined the impact of TTC on Chinese patients with HGSC for the first time.
• This was a retrospective study containing 625 homogenous patients.
• All patients received the similar surgical procedure and adjuvant chemotherapy.

ObjectiveThe aim of our study was to investigate the prognostic influence of time to chemotherapy (TTC) in patients with high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC).MethodsWe retrospectively investigated 625 consecutive patients with HGSC who underwent primary staging or debulking surgery followed by platinum-based intravenous chemotherapy between April 2005 and June 2013 in our center. TTC was defined as the time interval between primary surgery and initiation of chemotherapy.ResultsThe median (range) TTC was 15 (4–62) days. TTC was longer for patients who underwent bowel resection (p < 0.001). There were no differences in PFS and OS between patients initiating chemotherapy before and after 15 days (p = 0.604 and 0.826, respectively) or among 4 groups categorized by quartile values (< 10 days, 10–14 days, 15–20 days, or ≥ 21 days after surgery) (p = 0.471 and 0.516, respectively). When stratified by with and without residual disease, there were still no differences in PFS (p = 0.592 and 0.755, respectively) and OS (p = 0.962 and 0.640, respectively) between patients initiating chemotherapy before and after 15 days. In multivariate analyses, TTC was also not associated with PFS and OS categorized by median (p = 0.570 and 0.701, respectively), quartile values (p = 0.432, 0.194, 0.737 and 0.799, 0.290, 0.743, respectively) or integrated as a continuous variable (p = 0.550 and 0.430, respectively).ConclusionThe time interval between surgery and chemotherapy seemed to have no prognostic impact on patients with HGSC within 6 weeks.