Mette Calundann Noer

Risk factors for early death among ovarian cancer patients: a nationwide cohort study

To characterize ovarian cancer patients who die within 6 months of diagnosis and to identify prognostic factors for these early deaths. A nationwide cohort study covering ovarian cancer in Denmark in 2005-2016. Tumor and patient characteristics including comorbidity and socioeconomic factors were obtained from the comprehensive Danish national registers. A total of 5,570 patients were included in the study. Three months after ovarian cancer diagnosis 456 (8.2%) had died and 664 (11.9%) died within 6 months of diagnosis. Adjusted for age and comorbidity, patients who died early were admitted to hospital significantly more often in a 6-month period before the diagnosis (odds ratio [OR]=1.61 [1.29-2.00], and OR=1.47 [1.21-1.78]), for patients who died within 3 and 6 months respectively). Low educational level (OR=2.11), low income (OR=2.50) and singlehood (OR=1.90) were factors significantly associated with higher risk of early death. The discriminative ability of risk factors in identifying early death was assessed by cross-validated area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). The AUC was found to be 0.91 (0.88-0.93) and 0.90 (0.87-0.92) for death within 3 and 6 months, respectively. Despite several admissions to hospital, the ovarian cancer diagnosis is delayed for a subgroup of patients, who end up dying early, probably due to physical deterioration in the ineffective waiting time. Up to 90% of high-risk patients might be identified significantly earlier to improve the prognosis. The admittance of the patients having risk symptoms should include fast track investigation for ovarian cancer.

Days alive and out of hospital after surgical treatment of epithelial ovarian cancer: A Danish nationwide cohort study

Days alive and out of hospital (DAOH) is a validated outcome measure in perioperative trials integrating information on primary hospitalization, readmissions, and mortality. It is negatively associated with advanced age. However, DAOH has not been described for surgical treatment of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), primarily diagnosed in older patients. We conducted a Danish nationwide cohort study including patients undergoing debulking surgery for EOC from 2013 to 2018. DAOH was explored for 30 (DAOH30), 90 (DAOH90), and 180 (DAOH180) postoperative days in younger (<70 years) and older (≥70 years) patients with advanced-stage disease stratified by surgical modality (primary (PDS) or interval debulking surgery (IDS)). We examined the associations between patient- and surgical outcomes and low or high DAOH30. Overall, 1168 patients had stage IIIC-IV disease and underwent debulking surgery. DAOH30 was 22 days [interquartile range (IQR): 18, 25] and 23 days [IQR: 18, 25] for younger and older patients treated with PDS, respectively. For IDS, DAOH30 was 25 days [IQR: 22, 26] for younger and 25 days[IQR: 21, 26] for older patients. We found no significant differences between age cohorts regarding DAOH30, DAOH90, and DAOH180. Low DAOH30 was associated with poor performance status, PDS, extensive surgery, and long duration of surgery in adjusted analysis. DAOH did not differ significantly between age cohorts. Surgical rather than patient-related factors were associated with low DAOH30. Our results likely reflect a high selection of fit older patients for surgery, reducing the patient-related differences between younger and older patients receiving surgical treatment.