Abstract
Background: There is a recent focus on circulatory cancer cells (CCCs) as a prognostic biomarker for many malignant cancers. We aimed to investigate the association between the presence of CCCs before the surgery in patients with advanced ovarian cancer (AOC) and the survival of these patients. Methods: We included in this study 30 women with AOC and eligible for debulking. Blood samples were obtained before and after the surgery and the CCCs were counted using the optimized tapered-slit filter technique. The association between these cells and the survival of these patient was analyzed. Results: The median age of the included women was 57 years, while the median follow-up period was 29.3 months. There was no difference between the counts of CCCs before and after the debulking (P>0.05). There was no association between the post-debulking CCCs and the 3-year progression-free survival (PFS) (P>0.05) or the overall survival (OS) (P>0.05). There was an association between frequent presence of lymph node involvement and the presence of post-debulking CCCs (P 0.05). Conclusion: The presence of post-debulking CCCs was proven to be associated with bad prognosis as it showed to be associated with poor PFS. Further studies are required to enforce these findings.
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