Epithelial ovarian cancer
- Study type
- Review article
- Source
- The Lancet · 2019
In plain words
Epithelial ovarian cancer is often diagnosed late, at an advanced stage, and its treatment needs a team of specialists working together. The first treatment includes surgery and additional (adjuvant) treatment, and testing the tumour's genetic features, such as BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, helps choose treatment more precisely. If the disease comes back, it usually cannot be cured, and controlling symptoms and keeping a good quality of life become very important.
Study population
This is a review article and no patients were enrolled. Its subject is epithelial ovarian cancer, which is usually diagnosed at an advanced stage.
Endpoints
This is a review article and no primary or secondary endpoints were defined. Its main themes are: screening and prevention, primary treatment, histological and genomic subtypes, predictive markers of response and resistance, genomic testing in tumour and blood, and treatment of recurrent disease.
Safety and side effects
The abstract gives no data on adverse effects of treatments.
Clinical significance and place in guidelines
This review emphasises the complexity of epithelial ovarian cancer and the importance of histological and genomic subtypes in choosing treatment. Markers such as BRCA1/BRCA2 mutations and homologous recombination deficiency are discussed as predictors of response to inhibitors of the DNA damage response pathway. The authors stress the urgent need for evidence-based and consensus guidelines for each subtype and for international collaboration in trials. This article is not itself a clinical guideline, and authoritative up-to-date guidelines should be checked for treatment decisions.
Limitations
This is a narrative review and, based on the abstract, no systematic search method or assessment of evidence quality is reported. The abstract presents no quantitative data. According to the authors, evidence-based and consensus guidelines for each subtype still need to be developed.
This summary was prepared by the editorial team from the published paper; the original paper is the final reference. Read the original abstract on PubMed.