Some doctors actually start chemotherapy before the patients go home from ovarian cancer surgery, but that’s a bit much. It’s not necessary. The goal is to maintain the gains you just made with the operation and not let any cancer cells that are there gain a foothold. So doctors can actually give chemotherapy within less than a week after surgery. For the elderly, the frail, and those with poor functional status, it takes longer for doctors to get them strong enough to be ready for chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. You might wait two or three weeks.