Aim: The Ovarian Cancer Retrospective European (O'CaRE) study assessed the cumulative impact of high-risk factors on progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) following first-line treatment in patients diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer.Patients & methods: Medical records were collected from five European countries (2014 and 2015). Patients were grouped by number of high-risk factors: stage IV diagnosis, no known BRCA mutation, interval debulking surgery or no surgery, or visible residual disease.Results: Our analysis included 405 patients grouped based on having one (20.4%); two (32.3%); three (33.7%) or four (11.9%) high-risk factors. Increasing cumulative numbers of high-risk factors were associated with numerically shorter PFS and OS.Conclusion: Risk profiles should be carefully considered when planning clinical care.
Keywords: high-risk factors; ovarian; ovarian cancer; overall survival; progression-free survival; real-world evidence; survival.
Does the number of risk factors a person with advanced ovarian cancer have affect the likely success of their cancer treatment?What is already known on this topic? Studies have found that individual factors, such as disease stage, and whether any cancer cells remain after surgery are linked to earlier disease worsening and/or shorter survival after treatment in people with advanced ovarian cancer. These are known as ‘risk factors’. However, few studies have looked at whether this link is stronger if a person has several of these risk factors.What does this study add? In this study, we looked at whether outcomes after treatment worsen as the number of risk factors increases. We found that patients with more high-risk factors saw a worsening of their cancer much sooner than those with a fewer number of risk factors. Also, patients with multiple risk factors did not live as long as patients with fewer risk factors.How might this study affect research, practice or policy? When selecting therapies, healthcare providers should consider the impact of patient risk factors on how effectively that treatment will treat their cancer. The number of high-risk factors may also make an important difference in clinical trials and, therefore, should be considered when comparing results from different clinical trials.