Contribution of lymph node staging method and prognostic factors in malignant ovarian sex cord-stromal tumors: A world wide database analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the clinicopathologic prognostic factors in patients with malignant sex cord-stromal tumors (SCSTs) with lymph node dissection, and at the same time, to evaluate the influence of the log odds of positive lymph nodes (LODDS) on their survival.

METHODS: Patients diagnosed with malignant SCSTs who underwent lymph node dissection were extracted from the 1988-2013 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. Overall survival (OS) and cancer-specific survival (CSS) were estimated by Kaplan-Meier curves. The Cox proportional hazards regression model was used to identify independent predictors of survival.

RESULTS: 576 patients with malignant SCSTs and with lymphadenectomy were identified, including 468 (81.3%) patients with granulosa cell tumors (GCTs) and 80 (13.9%) patients with Sertoli-Leydig cell tumors (SLCTs). 399 (69.3%) patients and 118 (20.5%) patients were in the LODDS < -1 group and -1 ≤ LODDS < -0.5 group, respectively. The 10-year OS rate was 80.9% and CSS was 87.2% in the LODDS < -0.5 group, whereas the survival rates for other groups were 68.5% and 73.3%. On multivariate analysis, age 50 years or less (p < 0.001), tumor size of 10 cm or less (p < 0.001), early-stage disease (p < 0.001), and GCT histology (p ≤ 0.001) were the significant prognostic factors for improved survival. LODDS < -0.5 was associated with a favorable prognosis (OS: p = 0.051; CSS:P = 0.055).

CONCLUSIONS: Younger age, smaller tumor size, early stage, and GCT histologic type are independent prognostic factors for improved survival in patients with malignant SCST with lymphadenectomy. Stratified LODDS could be regarded as an effective value to assess the lymph node status, and to predict the survival status of patients.