PHILADELPHIA-NCI says many American women with ovarian cancer don’t get state-of-the-art treatment.
An NCI study of 785 patients diagnosed from a national sample in 1991 found that only 34.5% of women with stage I or II disease had lymph-node sampling. For about 90% this led to less-than-
optimal therapy, says Dr. Edward Trimble.
In contrast, he told the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting here, 71% of women with stage III disease and half (52.8%) with stage IV disease got state-of-the-art treatment, which often included carboplatin-cisplatin-based therapy plus surgery.
But older women with stage IV disease were less likely to get those treatments even after controlling for morbidity, and comorbidity significantly influenced the type and extent of surgery.
