Aetiology, Epidemiology, Histopathology, Classification, Detailed Evaluation, and Treatment of Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

There are a minimum of five distinct sub-types of ovarian cancer based on histology, each of which has distinct factors of risk, types of cells, molecular makeups, clinical characteristics, and therapeutic approaches. Ovarian cancer is detected usually at later stages, and there is no reliable screening method. Cytoreductive surgery and chemotherapy which use platinum-containing drugs are the standard treatments used for freshly detected cancer. Chemotherapy, drugs that are anti-angiogenic, poly ADP-ribose polymerase inhibitors, and immunological treatments are all used to treat recurrent cancer. The most frequent type of ovarian cancer to be diagnosed is high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC), which often responds well to platinum-based chemotherapy when discovered. However, HGSCs commonly relapse and develop increased treatment resistance in addition to the other histologies. As a result, ovarian cancer research is actively focused on understanding the processes causing platinum resistance and developing strategies to combat it. Serous tubal intraepithelial carcinoma is an HGSC precursor lesion. It is one of the early complications seen in ovarian carcinoma. It has been very useful in identifying the people who have a greater chance of developing ovarian cancer and development of strategies to prevent it. This has led to a significant progress for identification of the genes which are found in people with greater chances of development of ovarian carcinoma (for example, the BRCA1 and BRCA2).

Keywords: aetiology; differential diagnosis; epidemiology; histopathology; ovarian cancer; risk factors.