Background: Because of the rarity of primary fallopian tube adenocarcinoma (PFTA), the outcome of advanced primary fallopian tube carcinoma has not been fully evaluated, especially in Taiwan.
Methods: We retrospectively studied patients with proven surgicopathologic stage III PFTA. Thirteen patients from 1965 to 1995 were identified. All patients received standard staging surgery including washing cytology, total abdominal hysterectomy, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, retroperitoneal lymphadenectomy, infracolic omentectomy and excisional biopsy of all suspicious lesions. This was followed by adjuvant chemotherapy with four to eight courses of CAP or CEP (cyclophosphamide 500 mg/m2, adriamycin 50 mg/m2, or epirubicin 50 mg/m2, and cisplatin 50 mg/m2 intravenously, every 3 weeks) regimen.
Results: The accumulative disease-free survival rate was 15%. The incidence of retroperitoneal lymph node metastases was high, up to 69%, and the incidence of para-aortic lymph node metastases was 62%. Eighty-five percent of the cases were poorly differentiated carcinoma. Optimal debulking surgery was completed in 62% of patients, contributing to long-term patient survival (25% vs 0%), compared with those without optimal debulking surgery.
Conclusions: The prognosis of stage III PFTA in our study was poor. Careful lymph node dissection in the retroperitoneal space including the para-aortic area is required. Optimal debulking surgery plus postoperative adjuvant chemotherapy appears to be the only option for enhancing long-term disease-free survival.