**2. Materials and Methods**

Data of patients submitted to surgery for presumed early stage ovarian cancer between 2014 and 2019 were retrospectively reviewed after receiving the approval of the Ethical Committee (11/January 2020). In all cases, the surgical procedure consisted of total hysterectomy en bloc with bilateral adnexectomy, random peritoneal biopsy, omentectomy, pelvic and para-aortic lymph node dissection, as well as peritoneal washing. Pelvic lymph node dissection consisted of removing the lymph node groups at the level of the common and external iliac vessels and obturatory fossa, while para-aortic lymph node dissection consisted of removing the lymph node groups situated in the close proximity of the abdominal aorta, inferior cava vein and in between the two vessels from the renal vessels to the aortic and caval bifurcation. All cases were classified according to the 2014 International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology classification (FIGO 2014) [12]. Statistically significant differences were considered if a *p*-value lower than 0.05 was obtained. In order to compare different parameters, Fischer's exact test was used due to the relatively low number of cases introduced in the current study.
