Surgical treatment for recurrent ovarian malignancies.

Eighty-nine cases of recurrent ovarian malignancies which had undergone surgical treatment were studied. Debulking surgery is of great value in the treatment of primary ovarian carcinoma, but for recurrent carcinomas success depends upon the pathological type. The 5-year survival rate was 75% for patients with immature teratomas, but only 6.1% for those with epithelial ovarian carcinomas and 3.6% with endodermal sinus tumors. Two cases of recurrent dysgerminoma were both alive and well more than 10 years after treatment. So repeated debulking is worthwhile for recurrent immature teratoma and dysgerminoma, while in cases of epithelial type or endodermal sinus tumors successful debulking surgery should be followed by some new kinds of adjuvant therapy, otherwise only failure will result.