The role of anthracyclines in epithelial ovarian cancer

This paper provides a survey on anthracycline treatment in ovarian cancer, focusing on toxicity and analysis of treatment results. Meta-analyses and studies in which anthracyclines have been combined with "standard" taxoid regimens are reviewed. The data suggest that the addition of an anthracycline to front-line non-taxoid based therapy is beneficial. The addition of an anthracycline to a combination of a taxoid and platinum derivative is rationale and feasible and randomised trials are on their way to completion. It is important that the final conclusions of these studies are based on long-term survival data, not just on the assessment of median differences in survival.