Recovery After Ovarian Cancer Surgery: What To Expect
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/ Updated July 29th, 2020

Recovery After Ovarian Cancer Surgery: What To Expect

Medical Source: Dr. Jeanne Schilder
Indiana University Medical Center
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Recovery After Ovarian Cancer Surgery

  • Recovery after ovarian cancer surgery is fairly quick
  • Many patients can walk the day after surgery, are able to return home after three days, and are encouraged to continue daily activities at that time
  • Two weeks after surgery, patients will revisit the hospital for a postoperative evaluation to check on recovery and determine whether chemotherapy treatment will be necessary
For ovarian cancer patients who just finished surgery, you might be asking how long the recovery process will last and what you’ll be feeling. Luckily, oncologists tell SurvivorNet that many patients recovery fairly quickly after surgery.

“Our patients are typically out of bed the night of surgery or the next morning,” Dr. Jeanne M. Schilder, a gynecologic oncologist at Indiana University Medical Center, tells SurvivorNet. “This helps them recover and helps them on their way to really getting back to what their normal life was like before an ovarian cancer operation.”

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After surgery, patients are typically able to go home after two or three days in the hospital. While recovering, doctors recommend patients walk and resume daily activities. However, ovarian cancer patients who have received an operation are not recommended to drive for about two weeks due to possible abdominal discomfort they might experience. Patients will be asked to return to the hospital for a postoperative visit two weeks after surgery to see how they are recovering, and discuss whether postoperative treatments are necessary.

“Our goal is to have patients have the best quality of life and be back to their normal activities as quickly as possible despite the ovarian cancer diagnosis,” Dr. Schilder says.

Treatment After Ovarian Cancer Surgery

In order to be declared cancer-free, patients must meet with their oncologists for follow-up tests and final pathology to determine the stage of your tumor (if any of it is remaining) and what the next steps are. Some patients will be given chemotherapy treatments, which can have encouraging response rates. In most cases, about 80 percent of ovarian cancer tumors do respond to chemotherapy which means that they shrink or go away completely with the treatment. However, the type and dosage of chemotherapy required will depend on a number of factors, such as your overall health after surgery and the amount of cancer that remains in your abdominal cavity after surgery.

“The final pathology usually confirms the diagnosis of ovarian cancer, and we designate a stage of the tumor,” Dr. Luis Vaccarello, a gynecological oncologist at Zangmeister Cancer Center, told SurvivorNet in a separate interview. “The most important factor after surgery is whether we’ve been able to resect the cancer completely or minimally to a small amount of volume that remains within the peritoneal cavity. The smaller the amount that remains, the better the prognosis. [Then] we begin discussions regarding the next step of chemotherapy.”

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Dr. Jeanne Schilder is a professor of obstetrics & gynecology at Indiana University Medical Center. Read More

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