Updates and New Options in Advanced Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Treatment

The medical and surgical treatment strategies for women with epithelial ovarian cancer continue to evolve. In the past several years, there has been significant progress backed by landmark clinical trials. Although primary epithelial ovarian cancer is still treated with a combination of surgery and systemic therapy, more complex surgical procedures and novel therapeutics have emerged as standard of care. Cytotoxic chemotherapy and maximal surgical effort remain mainstays, but targeted therapies are becoming more widespread and new data have called into question the role of surgery for women with recurrent disease. Poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors have improved progression-free survival outcomes in both the frontline and recurrent settings, and their use has become increasingly widespread. The recent creation of treatment categories based on genetic changes reinforces the recommendation that all women with epithelial ovarian cancer have germline genetic testing, and new biomarker-driven drug approvals indicate that women may benefit from somatic molecular testing as well. To continue to identify novel strategies, however, enrollment on clinical trials remains of the utmost importance. With the evolving data on surgical approaches, targeted therapies such as antiangiogenics and poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors, and the new therapeutic agents and combinations in development, we hope that advanced epithelial ovarian cancer will eventually transition from an almost universally fatal disease to one that can increasingly be cured.