Differences in tumor behavior between serous and non-serous ovarian carcinoma, focus on distribution of stage, laterality and survival

Purpose: To determine the differences in tumor behavior between ovarian serous and non-serous carcinoma. Materials and Methods: We retrospectively collected the medical records of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer at our hospital from January 2010 to December 2015. We compared the clinicopathological behavior and survival between serous and non-serous carcinoma. Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression methods were used to analyze risk factors on survival. Results: A total of 268 patients were included, of whom 38.1% had serous carcinoma. The patients with serous carcinoma had significantly more advanced disease including extra-ovarian disease (89.2% vs. 34.3%), abdominal disease (69.6% vs. 22.9%), lymph node metastasis (39.2% vs. 14.4%), para-aortic lymph node involvement (17.7% vs. 5.4%), and FIGO Stage III/IV disease (78.4% vs. 28.3%). In addition, serous carcinoma tended to involve bilateral ovaries (65.7% vs. 22.3%). However, in FIGO Stage III/IV disease, serous carcinoma had a better overall survival than non-serous type (HR 0.469, 95% CI = 0.268-0.882, p = 0.008). Conclusions: Although serous carcinoma presented more metastasis, it appeared to have better survival when compared to non-serous type in advanced stage disease.