Objective Only 3% of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) have a longer treatment-free interval (TFI) after second-line intravenous (IV) platinum chemotherapy than with frontline IV therapy. We sought to examine what impact second-line combination IV/intraperitoneal (IV/IP) platinum therapy might have on the ratio of second-line to first-line TFI in patients treated with second-line IP platinum chemotherapy for first recurrence after front-line IV therapy.

Methods A retrospective analysis of women who received combination platinum-based IV/IP chemotherapy for recurrent EOC between January 2005 and March 2011 was conducted. Patients were identified from the tumor registry, and office records from a large gynecologic oncology practice and patient records were reviewed. The first and second TFIs were defined as the time from the end of previous platinum-based therapy to the start of next therapy.

Results Twenty-five women received IV/IP chemotherapy for their first EOC recurrence after IV chemotherapy. In 10 patients (40%), we observed a longer TFI after IV/IP chemotherapy than after primary IV chemotherapy. For these 10 patients, the median TFI for primary response was 22 months (range, 15–28), whereas median TFI after IV/IP chemotherapy for recurrent disease was 37 months (range, 12–61).

Conclusions For EOC patients with limited peritoneal recurrence, 40% of patients had a second-line IP-platinum TFI that exceeded their frontline IV-platinum TFI compared to published data. These data support the use of IV/IP chemotherapy as a treatment for recurrence.