The role of minimally invasive surgery in the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian carcinoma

Standard treatment for ovarian cancer includes optimal cytoreduction, followed by chemotherapy in most cases. This study aimed to evaluate the role of minimally invasive approaches in diagnosing and treating ovarian carcinoma. We conducted a retrospective analysis of patients diagnosed with ovarian carcinoma who underwent surgery at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at St. Marina University Hospital–Pleven from January 2020 to April 2023. The study included 213 patients; the average age was 58.90 years. Out of all patients in the study, 64 initially received only diagnostic intervention. Of these patients, 53 (24.9%) underwent minimally invasive diagnostic intervention, while 11 (5.2%) had diagnostic intervention through conventional laparotomy. Among the patients who had surgery, the most common procedure (53.1%) was total abdominal hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, followed by diagnostic laparoscopy with subsequent laparotomy (14.6%). Thirty-one (14.6%) of the patients had interval surgery. Twenty-seven (87.1%) patients underwent minimally invasive diagnostic intervention. Moreover, 21 (67.7%) patients who had interval surgery also underwent surgery using a minimally invasive approach. The obtained results show that minimally invasive approaches are widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian carcinoma. The increasing adoption of interval surgery will expand another application of minimally invasive surgery - robot-assisted interval surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy.