Ovarian cancer: Is the news good enough?

Abstract

Ovarian cancer (OC) is still the fourth cause of death by cancer among women and the most fatal among gynecological tumors. The purpose of the symposium held every 2 years in Valencia is to report and discuss new developments in the treatment of OC patients. It also tries to clarify what is evidence-based and what is not. In this issue, proteomic advances for early diagnosis and new tumor markers are presented. Controversies about the role of conservative surgery or the role of surgery in the recurrent disease are discussed. In addition, the current standard treatment, new tendencies on therapy, as well as important aspects related to the molecular era have been updated. Reaching international consensus is a challenge but offers the opportunity to test multiple regimens more efficiently against a single control population, rather than conducting multiple smaller studies. Most of the studies presented in this Symposium were carried out in Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup. If indeed answers to the relevant questions are to be obtained more quickly, then a network of current national or international groups could potentially facilitate this. © 2005 IGCS.