Phase III Randomised Clinical Trial for Stage III Ovarian Carcinoma Randomising Between Secondary Debulking Surgery With or Without Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy

Rationale: Ovarian cancer is the second most common gynaecologic cancer in the Netherlands preceded by endometrial cancer. It is however the leading cause of death among women with gynaecologic malignancies with an annual mortality rate of 9 per 100.000. The majority of the patients are diagnosed with a high stage ovarian carcinoma due to the fact that symptoms occur at a late stage of the disease and screening methods for ovarian cancer are suboptimal. Optimal treatment consists of a combination of chemotherapy and debulking surgery. Despite the appearance of localized disease and the absence of obvious residual tumour following primary treatment, the majority of patients (80%) will have persistent disease or will develop recurrent disease. Additional strategies are warranted to reduce the recurrence rate and increase disease free survival and overall survival in this group of patients.

The concept of administering intraperitoneal chemotherapy is based on the ideas on peritoneal dialysis. Intraperitoneal drug therapy is designed to maximize drug delivery to the tumour with generally acceptable systemic side effects associated with IV administration of the drug. This strategy is especially attractive for treatment of ovarian carcinoma, which remains largely restricted to the abdominal cavity for most of its natural history. So far 3 randomised controlled trials have shown an overall and progression-free survival benefit when cisplatin is administered postoperatively by the IP route in patients with stage III, optimally resected disease. These studies however found that the majority of patients did not complete all planned 6 cycles due to catheter related problems. An alternative way of administering chemotherapy intra abdominally whilst bypassing the use of a catheter intra- abdominally is provided by perfusion of the abdomen during surgery under hyperthermic conditions. This study compares the interval debulking plus or minus the perfusion of the abdomen with chemotherapy under hyperthermic conditions during surgery (OVHIPEC).

Objective: The primary objectives of this study are comparing the duration of recurrence free survival following completion of treatment between the 2 study arms.

Secondary objectives of this study involve toxicity and morbidity, quality of life, tumour response following treatment and overall survival of the study arm compared to the standard arm.

Study design: Phase III randomised trial Study population: Patients diagnosed with stage III ovarian carcinoma, peritoneal cell carcinoma or tuba carcinoma who are eligible for interval debulking surgery either following primary chemotherapy or following incomplete primary debulking and chemotherapy. Age between 18 - 76 yr old.