Volume 6 | Issue -14
Volume 6 | Issue -14
Volume 6 | Issue -14
Volume 6 | Issue -14
Volume 6 | Issue -14
Background: Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death in women diagnosed with gynecological cancers. It is also the fifth most frequent cause of death in women, in general. Most women with ovarian cancer are diagnosed in later life, with a median age of diagnosis of 63 years. Most women are symptomatic at disease presentation and have ascites and gastrointestinal dysfunction (for example, constipation and/or bowel obstruction, diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting and gastrointestinal reflux). Specific ovarian carcinoma treatment recommendations are dependent on the stage of the disease and extent of surgical debulking. The long-term OS rate for women with optimally debulked stage III disease is approximately. After surgery, all women should receive at least 6 cycles of platinum-based therapy with either cisplatin or carboplatin in combination with a taxane, usually paclitaxel. If cisplatin is used, patients require careful monitoring of renal function, electrolytes, and neurologic status. Carboplatin and paclitaxel thus have widespread acceptance as initial chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. Women who have residual disease larger than 1 cm after initial debulking surgery have a substantially worse prognosis than those with optimally debulked disease. Nevertheless, a small proportion of these women will have long-term DFS. In contrast, women with disease outside the abdominal cavity or in the liver parenchyma, making them stage IV, have a worse prognosis and rarely have a long-term DFS. In addition to residual tumor volume, other factors associated with a poor prognosis include advanced age, mucinous or clear cell histology, and the presence of ascites. Chemotherapy prolongs survival in women with stage III disease, whether optimally or suboptimally debulked, and possibly in stage IV disease. Although there are many active agents for the treatment of ovarian cancer, the standard of care is combination therapy that includes a taxane and a platinum compound, usually carboplatin and paclitaxel