Compliance to consensus recommendations, surgeon's experience and introduction of a quality assurance and management program. – Influence on therapy of early-stage ovarian carcinoma

State of the art surgical staging and adjuvant chemotherapy in early-stage ovarian carcinoma has an impact on patient's outcome, but compliance to guidelines and consensus recommendations is still poor. This study reports on our results before and after introduction of a quality assurance and management program in our clinic in 2001. Patients with ovarian carcinoma limited to the pelvis who underwent primary surgery in our hospital from 1997 to October 2007 were eligible for this study. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to evaluate the impact of compliance with our management program and physician's experience in ovarian carcinoma surgery on achieving both standards of surgery and chemotherapy. In a total of 117 women a significant impact on adherence to guideline defined comprehensive surgical staging was found for poor ECOG performance status (OR 22.16; CI 3.2–152.0; p=0.002) and year of surgery before 2001 (OR 47.60; CI 9.20–245.22; p<0.001). Tumor grading < G3 (OR 4.14; CI: 1.20–14.22; p=0.02) was a statistically significant predictor for receiving standard adjuvant chemotherapy. Survival analyses showed a trend towards improved survival for patients having received guidelines adopted therapy, but event numbers were too low for adequate analyses. The introduction of a quality assurance program for treatment of ovarian carcinoma represents a major improvement of patient care. It led to a higher compliance with consensus recommendations and showed already a trend towards improved survival. Further outcome research should focus on methods for implementation of guidelines in daily practice in institutions caring for patients with ovarian carcinoma.