Abstract
Worldwide, ovarian cancer (CaO) is the leading cause of death from gynecological cancer and the fourth most common cause of cancer death in women. In 2006, according to the American Cancer Society, 20,180 new cases of CaO will be diagnosed in the United States and 15,310 women will die from the disease. This high death rate results from the difficulty associated with detecting CaO at an early stage and the lack of effective therapies to treat advanced disease. As we discuss, physicians are unanimous in calling for the development of a diagnostic test that can identify CaO before it metastasizes. In this report, we examine the pathophysiology of CaO and describe current methods of screening for the cancer, the use of biomarkers to diagnose CaO, proteomic and genomic technologies that researchers are employing to identify and test biomarkers, emerging biomarkers, and the use of biomarkers to improve clinical trials of CaO treatments and ultimately to tailor treatment to the individual patient.
Table of Contents
- Overview
- Pathophysiology of Ovarian
- Cancer
- Characterization of Ovarian Epithelial
- Tumors
- Spread of Ovarian
- Cancer
- Staging
- Prognostic
- Factors
- Tumor Stage
- Peritoneal Fluid Cytology
- Tumor Histology
- Performance Status
- Age
- Volume of Residual Disease
- CA-125 Levels
- DNA Ploidy
- Current Ovarian Cancer
- Screening
- Current Ovarian Cancer
- Diagnosis
- Value of a Biomarker for Ovarian
- Cancer
- Technologies Used to Identify Ovarian Cancer
- Biomarkers
- Proteomics
- Genomics
- Emerging
- markers
- Biomarker
- Development
- Improving Clinical Trial
- Design
- Patient-Tailored
- Therapy
- Outlook
- Table 1 International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) Staging System for Primary Carcinoma of the Ovary
- Table 2 Select Emerging Biomarkers for the Diagnosis of Ovarian Cancer
- Table 3 Serum Biomarkers Evaluated for Their Ability to Detect Ovarian Cancer
- Table 4 Ongoing U.S. Clinical Trials Investigating Screening and Diagnostic Methods for Ovarian Cancer
