Role of Pelvic and Para-Aortic Lymphadenectomy in Advanced Ovarian Epithelial Cancer

Background: the role of detection and removal of retroperitoneal lymph nodes in patients with advanced ovarian cancer disease is unclear. Aim of the work: this study was aimed to evaluate the therapeutic role of pelvic and paraaortic lymphadenectomy in patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer. Patients and Methods: this study was designed as a prospective randomized controlled trial. Thirty patients were divided into two equal groups; 15 patients underwent optimum cytoreduction and in the other 15 patient retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy was added. Results: the mean number of nodes removed was 26, and the mean number of positive nodes was 6. There was significant difference between the two groups of the study when considering operation time (Mean 122 min. Vs. 192 min.). Also there is significant difference between the two groups of the study when considering hospital stay in days (Mean 8 days Vs. 13 days). There was significant difference between the two group of the study when considering the blood loos and need for blood transfusion (26% Vs. 80%). There was no significant difference between the two groups of the study when considering recurrence (73.3% Vs. 60%). Conclusion: Our results show improvement towards decrease the recurrence in the lymphadenectomy group but with non-significant results.