| Stage |
Description |
Frequency |
5-year Survival |
| I |
Cancer
confined to the ovary or ovaries |
23% |
90% |
| II |
Cancer confined
to the true pelvis |
13% |
70% |
| III |
Cancer spread
into but confined to the abdomen |
47% |
15-20% |
| IV |
Cancer spread
outside the pelvis and abdomen |
16% |
1-5% |
|
Treatment Choice
of therapy depends upon the stage, extent of residual tumor, and histologic
grade. Generally, patients are divided into one of three separate
treatment groups:
- Those with early stage (I and II) and microscopic
or no residual disease. These patients with well or moderately
differentiated tumors typically need no adjuvant therapy after definitive
surgery; patients with poorer histologic grades are typically administered
chemotherapy.
- Those with advanced stage (III) but minimal residual
disease (<1 cm) after initial surgery. Primary treatment for
these patients is combination chemotherapy.
- Patients with bulky residual tumor and advanced (III
or IV) disease. For these patients, the primary treatment
is combination chemotherapy.
Patients with advanced disease whose cancer recurs after
initial treatment are usually not curable by conventional means.
Patients with tumor of low malignant potential, even
with advanced stage disease, have longer survival when managed with surgery
alone. The added value of radiation and chemotherapy has not been
shown.
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(survival, side effects, etc.) for 20 recent therapies for ovarian cancer.
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Source: Robert C. Young, Gynecologic Malignancies, in Harrison’s
Principles of Internal Medicine, pt. 5 § 83, at 553-557 (Dennis L.
Kasper, M.D. et al., eds, 16th ed 2005).
|
Epithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic cancer in the U.S. In 2004, 25,580 new cases were diagnosed and 16,090 women died from this disease. The incidence of this cancer increases with each decade and peaks for women in their eighties. Each pregnancy reduces the ovarian cancer risk by about 10% and breast feeding and tubal ligation also appear to reduce the risk.