The role of cytoreductive surgery and hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy in the treatment of ovarian cancer relapse

Nowadays the standard clinical management for advanced epithelial ovarian cancer is constituted by primary cytoreductive surgery associated to adjuvant systemic chemotherapy. Even if this first-line chemotherapy shows a high rate of complete responses, the disease recurrences occur especially in stage-III patients. Actually an option for this subset of patients is represented by secondary cytoreductive surgery plus hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy that represents a promising therapy, having shown positive results in terms of median overall survival, progression free survival and overall survival. However, a much more research is still required especially by prospective randomised trials to improve outcomes in recurrent ovarian cancer.