Rethinking Ovarian Cancer: Recommendations for Improving Outcomes

2012

Sebastian Vaughan,¹ Jermaine I. Coward,¹ Robert C. Bast Jr., Andy Berchuck, Jonathan S. Berek,James D. Brenton, George Coukos, Christopher C. Crum, Ronny Drapkin, Dariush Etemadmoghadam, Michael Friedlander, Hani Gabra, Stan B. Kaye, Chris J. Lord, Ernst Lengyel,Douglas A. Levine, Iain A. McNeish, Usha Menon, Gordon B. Mills, Kenneth P. Nephew, Amit M. Oza, Anil K. Sood, Euan A. Stronach, Henning Walczak, David D. Bowtell,^2,3 and Frances R. Balkwill²

There have been major advances in our understanding of the cellular and molecular biology of the human malignancies collectively referred to as ovarian cancer. At a recent Helene Harris Memorial Trust meeting, an international group of researchers considered actions that should be taken to improve the outcome for women with ovarian cancer. Nine major recommendations are outlined in this Perspective.

Patient prognosis has improved significantly for many solid cancer types. However, survival of women with epithelial ovarian cancer has changed little since platinum-based treatment was introduced over 30 years ago. Invasive epithelial ovarian cancer is widely viewed and treated as a single disease entity with little stratification of histological or molecular subtypes. At a recent Helene Harris Memorial Trust (HHMT) meeting of leading ovarian cancer researchers and clinician-scientists, sponsored and organised by Ovarian Cancer Action (Box 1), we asked the question ‘what actions can we take to improve the outcome for women with ovarian cancer?’ A consensus regarding the major barriers to success and the most pressing questions led delegates to propose nine priorities for action, which we describe in this Perspective.

^NIH