Abstract
The treatment of recurrent ovarian cancer continues to evolve with improved surgical, chemotherapeutic and targeted approaches resulting in improvements in survival. Effective salvage regimens mean that more patients who develop recurrent disease may go on to receive multiple lines of treatments over a longer period of time. New classes of targeted agents in the early and late stages of development bring hope for more gains to be made over the next few years. The paradigm of maintenance treatment is being slowly advanced with antiangiogenic therapies, although the longer term impact on overall survival at this juncture is still unclear. There are variations in practice across the world; for example, bevacizumab in platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer is approved in Europe but not in the USA. Subgroups of patients with chemotherapy-refractory or -resistant disease, clear cell and mucinous cancer still respond poorly to treatment and represent an area of urgent need. The molecular characterization of these tumors will help improve our understanding of these resistant subgroups and will open new avenues for more personalized and targeted treatments in the coming and near future.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
The authors have received support from the NIH Research Biomedical Research Center. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.
No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.