BACKGROUND: The prognosis of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains poor. Cause-specific survival (CSS) is an overall survival measure of cancer survival that excludes other causes of death. This retrospective population study used the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to evaluate prognostic factors associated with one-year CSS in women with stage III–IV EOC between 2004–2014.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: Data from the SEER program included a cohort of patients with stage III–IV EOC between 2004–2014. Binomial logistic regression analysis, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, and multivariate Cox proportional hazards models were used for analysis of patient outcome, including the one-year CSS.

RESULTS: There were 14,798 patients with stage III–IV EOC identified from SEER between 2004–2014, including 13,134 (88.8%), 892 (6.0%), 448 (3.0%), and 324 (2.2%) patients with serous, endometrioid, clear cell, and mucinous ovarian cancer, respectively. The overall one-year CSS was 91.2%. One-year CSS was 92.5%, 92.2%, 74.0%, and 62.5% in patients with serous, endometrioid, clear cell, and mucinous ovarian cancer, respectively (P<0.001). Histological tumor type was an independent prognostic factor of one-year CSS. Patients with mucinous EOC (HR, 8.807; 95% CI, 6.563–9.965; P<0.001) and clear cell EOC (HR, 4.581; 95% CI, 3.774–5.560; P<0.001) had a significantly lower one-year CSS compared with patients with endometrioid and serous EOC who had comparable one-year CSS (HR, 1.247; 95% CI, 0.978–1.590; P=0.075).

CONCLUSIONS: A retrospective population study of the SEER database between 2004–2014 identified that histological tumor type was associated with one-year CSS in women with stage III–IV EOC.

Keywords: Histology, Mortality, Ovarian Neoplasms, Carcinoma, Ovarian Epithelial, Databases as Topic, Multivariate Analysis, Proportional Hazards Models, SEER Program, Time Factors