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Abstract
Objective The objective of this systematic review was to assess the incidence of lymph node metastasis in patients with clinically presumed early-stage low-grade serous ovarian cancer that underwent primary surgical treatment.
Methods This study was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42022308923). A systematic literature review was conducted following the Meta-analyses Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) checklist. PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Ovid, and Scopus databases were searched since inception and up to March 2022. The inclusion criteria were: pathological confirmation of low-grade serous ovarian cancer (clinically presumed FIGO 2014 stages I-IIA at time of surgery) that underwent primary surgical treatment, including pelvic and/or para-aortic lymph node dissection.
Results The search identified 3763 articles; 59 were considered potentially eligible after removing duplicates, and eight studies finally met the selection criteria. In total, 35 of 277 (12.6%) patients had lymph node metastasis, and only four studies reported upstaging due to lymph node metastasis in 16 of 153 (10.5%) patients. None of the eight studies included reported the rate of complications or complications specifically for the subgroup of patients with early-stage low-grade tumors.
Conclusion In patients with early-stage low-grade serous ovarian cancer, lymph node assessment should be discussed when counseling for primary surgical staging.
- ovarian cancer
- lymph nodes
- cystadenocarcinoma, serous
Data availability statement
All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
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Data availability statement
All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.
Footnotes
Contributors DV-C: conceptualization, investigation, methodology, writing - original draft, writing - review, editing and responsible for the overall content as guarantor. JR: data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, writing - review, and editing. RP: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, writing - review and editing, supervision.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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