[Trends in comprehensive treatment for gynecologic malignancies]

Abstract

Advances in many areas, including oncology-epidemiology, chemotherapy, diagnosis, surgery, radiology, and clinical research have all had a positive impact on the treatment of gynecologic malignancies, so that today we have achieved an improved quality of life concomitant with increased survival rates in patients. The improvements in therapy for gynecologic malignancies have been in diagnostic procedures, such as tumor markers, molecular biologic methods, and image analysis. Considerable progress has been made in surgical management, from focal excision of primary lesions to minimal debulking surgery after the initial chemotherapy for advanced cancer. Chemotherapy has advanced markedly after the introduction of cisplatin, and various regimens or anticancer drug-analogs of cisplatin, camptotesin, and paclitaxel have been introduced. In recent years, the quality of life of patients with malignancies has been one of the most important factors in treatment. Intensive and combination therapies will be put to greater use for gynecologic malignancy in the future.