[Treatment of epithelial ovarian cancer]

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecological cancer among women. The median age at diagnosis is 63 years. The vast majority of patients present with advanced disease and require a combination of cytoreductive surgery and adjuvant chemotherapy. Important features that determine the outcome of treatment include the stage of disease, hystological type, grade and the size of the residual tumour after initial surgery. Current guidelines recommend that standard first-line chemotherapy should include a platinum-based regimen with paclitaxel. Despite the combined therapy, over 50% of all the patients has relapse. Relapsed ovarian cancer is incurable, however chemotherapy can improve quality of life and survival. Currently, there is no worldwide accepted standard treatment for patients with platinum-refractory ovarian cancer. Docetaxel, topotecan, gemcitabine, pegylated liposomal doxorubicin, etoposide and tamoxifen can be used in this group. However response duration rarely exceeds 12 months. Intraperitoneal chemotherapy, gene therapy, immunotherapy, signal transduction inhibitors (trastuzumab) and angiogenesis inhibitors (bevacizumab) are all potential future therapies, and are being investigated in ongoing clinical research. In this publication authors review the literature of current treatment options in epithelial ovarian carcinoma.