The Prognostic Impact of Duration of Anemia During Chemotherapy in Advanced Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Objective. To propose a measure of anemia to be used as a prognosticfactorforprogression-freesurvivalandoverall survival in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer patients. Patients and Methods.Seventy-six patients with International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage III and stage IV epithelial ovarian cancer who had receivedatleastsixcoursesofplatinum-andtaxane-based systemic chemotherapy and achieved clinical or pathologic complete response were included. A novel prognostic factor based on the duration of anemia was proposed and the impact of anemia on progression-free and overall survival times was analyzed by a log-rank test and a Cox proportional hazards model. Results.Weintroduceabinaryvariable,Hb1020,that takes a value of 1 if the duration of a hemoglobin (Hb) level 20% of the total duration of chemo