Prognosis and Therapy of Ovarian Cancer: Part 2 – the Shifting Landscape of Medical Treatment in Ovarian Cancer Available to Purchase

Background: Ovarian cancer (OC) remains the most common cause of death among all gynecological cancer. For early-stage disease (FIGO stages I and II), staging surgery followed by chemotherapy (CT) with carboplatin ± paclitaxel often results in high rates of progression-free and overall survival. However, this is not the case for advanced-stage disease (stages III and IV), where recurrence rates are significantly higher. Consequently, additional therapeutic strategies, such as maintenance treatment, are essential to improve outcomes in these patients. Summary: Several randomized controlled trials have proven the benefit of bevacizumab, an anti-vascular endothelial growth factor antibody (anti-VEGF) as first-line maintenance treatment. Molecular testing led to the introduction of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibitors (PARPis), with outstanding results in BRCA-mutated (BRCAmt) and homologous recombination-deficient without BRCAmt (HRd) tumors, but not as ideal in HR-proficient (HRp) tumors, which make up the majority of the OC tumors; therefore, further research in this category of tumors is urgently warranted. Immunotherapy, both with CT and as maintenance, failed to improve survival in advanced OC. Key Messages: Combining multiple drug classes (immune checkpoint inhibitors, anti-VEGF, and PARPi) was able to improve survival; results in HRp tumors are however still pending. Phase 2 and 3 trials are underway to investigate more innovative treatment of OC.