Ovarian cancer (OC) constitutes the seventh most common cancer among women. It is one of the most common gynecologic cancers being in the third rank after cervical and uterine cancers. OC is the most lethal gynecologic cancer. Peritoneal carcinomatosis is a terminal stage. Extensive seeding of the peritoneal cavity by tumor cells is often associated with ascites, particularly in advanced, high-grade serous carcinomas. These cancers grow rapidly, metastasize early, and have a very aggressive disease course.
Prognostic factors in peritoneal carcinomatosis include: tumor histopathology, intraoperative assessment of the extent of carcinomatosis at time of surgical exploration (PCI index), CT PCI and the completeness of cytoreduction score (CCS). A complete surgical cytoreduction with removal of all macroscopic detectable tumor tissue remains the most important independent risk factor predicting survival.
PCI score is a reliable tool helping to assess the extent of disease intraoperatively in advanced serous EOC patients. PCI score may also help predict complete surgical cytoreduction, however, a PCI cut-off score that has prognostic significance could not be extrapolated from this cohort.