Advanced ovarian cancer and cytoreductive surgery: Independent validation of a risk-calculator for perioperative adverse events

Abstract

Objective: To independently validate a published risk-calculator for adverse perioperative outcomes in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer undergoing debulking surgery at a high-volume surgical center.

Methods: Using our institution's curated prospective ovarian cancer database, we identified patients with epithelial ovarian cancer who underwent a debulking procedure from 7/2015 to 5/2019, to be used as the validation cohort. Variables used in the published nomogram were collected. These included American Society of Anesthesiology classification, preoperative albumin, history of bleeding disorder, presence of ascites on preoperative imaging, designation of elective or emergent surgery, age of the patient, and a procedure score. Patients were included if they had information available for all the variables used in the nomogram, and 30-day follow-up within our institution. The primary outcome was Clavien-Dindo Class IV with specific conditions (postoperative sepsis, septic shock, cardiac arrest, myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, ventilation >48 h, or unplanned intubation) and 30-day mortality. The combination of these endpoints is called the combined complication rate.

Results: A total of 700 patients who underwent debulking surgery for epithelial ovarian cancer during the timeframe met inclusion criteria. The combined complication rate was 11.7%; 9.9% of patients were readmitted; 2.7% required reoperation. Sepsis was the most common primary endpoint complication (4.4%), followed by septic shock (1.4%). There was no 30-day mortality in our cohort. The nomogram performed well, with a c index of 0.715 (95% CI 0.66-0.768), which was comparable to the published nomogram.

Conclusions: We independently validated a complication nomogram at a high-volume surgical center. This nomogram performs well at predicting a lower likelihood of serious postoperative complications. An enhanced nomogram would help identify patients at higher risk for serious complications.

Keywords: Cytoreduction; Ovarian cancer; Perioperative complications; Surgical procedures.