We have come a long way in terms of progress in ovarian cancer treatment and providing hope and improved outcomes to many women with this lethal disease, but there is still a long way to go.

Ovarian cancer often manifests through ambiguous symptoms and by the time a diagnosis is confirmed, the disease has reached a critical stage, thus limiting treatment options. The mainstay course of treatment for ovarian cancer — surgery and chemotherapy — remained largely unchanged for over 40 years.

However, the debilitating adverse effects, resistance to treatment and resurgance of the disease meant that there was a great unmet need in treatment options for women affected by ovarian cancer. The introduction of targeted therapies in the last five years has provided a much needed boost to the post-surgical treatment regime for women diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer.

in the United States are estimated to receive a new diagnosis of ovarian cancer in 2017.1

So what’s next for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer? Pipeline breakthroughs and combination therapies are the near-future milestones we expect to see in the treatment of this deadly cancer. The introduction of immunotherapies, as well as the combination of immunotherapies with other targeted therapies, are also expected to come through in this disease.

References

[1] http://www.cancer.org/cancer/ovariancancer/detailedguide/ovarian-cancer-key-statistics Last accessed February 2017