Recent progress in the treatment of epithelial ovarian malignancy

Improved surgical and chemotherapeutic management has ensured that more than half the patients with advanced ovarian cancer will be clinically free of disease shortly after treatment begins. Aggressive cytoreductive surgical treatment and combination cytotoxic chemotherapy have appreciably prolonged survival and have induced cures in some women with metastatic disease. An increasing number of women are being seen with small residual disease at second-look laparotomy, and intraperitoneal administration of chemotherapeutic and immunotherapeutic agents is being investigated for these patients. Specific immunotherapies, including monoclonal antibodies raised against patients' own tumor cells, are also being investigated. During the next five years we may see significant improvement in the cure rate for this disease.