Paradigm Shift: A Comprehensive Review of Ovarian Cancer Management in an Era of Advancements.
Valéria TavaresInês Soares MarquesInês Guerra de MeloJoana AssisDeolinda PereiraRui MedeirosPublished in: International journal of molecular sciences (2024)
Ovarian cancer (OC) is the female genital malignancy with the highest lethality. Patients present a poor prognosis mainly due to the late clinical presentation allied with the common acquisition of chemoresistance and a high rate of tumour recurrence. Effective screening, accurate diagnosis, and personalised multidisciplinary treatments are crucial for improving patients' survival and quality of life. This comprehensive narrative review aims to describe the current knowledge on the aetiology, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of OC, highlighting the latest significant advancements and future directions. Traditionally, OC treatment involves the combination of cytoreductive surgery and platinum-based chemotherapy. Although more therapeutical approaches have been developed, the lack of established predictive biomarkers to guide disease management has led to only marginal improvements in progression-free survival (PFS) while patients face an increasing level of toxicity. Fortunately, because of a better overall understanding of ovarian tumourigenesis and advancements in the disease's (epi)genetic and molecular profiling, a paradigm shift has emerged with the identification of new disease biomarkers and the proposal of targeted therapeutic approaches to postpone disease recurrence and decrease side effects, while increasing patients' survival. Despite this progress, several challenges in disease management, including disease heterogeneity and drug resistance, still need to be overcome.
Keyphrases
- end stage renal disease
- poor prognosis
- ejection fraction
- free survival
- newly diagnosed
- prognostic factors
- peritoneal dialysis
- healthcare
- squamous cell carcinoma
- minimally invasive
- oxidative stress
- long non coding rna
- patient reported outcomes
- cancer therapy
- gene expression
- dna methylation
- single cell
- coronary artery disease
- combination therapy
- drug delivery
- coronary artery bypass
- rectal cancer
- copy number