First-line treatment of advanced ovarian cancer: an expert update

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cause of death among malignant diseases in women in Europe. The standard treatment is cytoreductive surgery, followed by platinum-taxane based chemotherapy. In patients with advanced disease, a valid option is a neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by interval debulking surgery. Despite the progress in primary treatment, almost 70% of the patients relapse. There is a significant need for better first-line treatment to avoid or delay relapse and improve ovarian cancer outcomes. The most significant change involves the changes in the treatment schedule and new drugs in first-line chemotherapy. Bevacizumab is approved in first-line treatment combined with carboplatin and paclitaxel as it improves progression-free survival (PFS) in patients with a higher risk of recurrence. After achieving the response to first-line chemotherapy, maintenance therapy with poly-adenosine-diphosphate-ribose-polymerase (PARP) inhibitors prolongs PFS in patients with homologous recombination deficiency (HRD). Patients with BRCA mutations obtain the most significant benefit.