New Developments in Ovarian Cancer Treatment Are Showing Promise

Cancer is never an easy foe, but some types are more stubborn than others. Ovarian cancer is one of the hardest to treat. But there are signs of progress. Several recent studies have used new combination treatment strategies, including a drug that may make chemotherapy more effective and a drug originally designed to treat breast cancer. More research is needed, but the new studies provide hope for improving outcomes for women with advanced ovarian cancer, when there was little before. On its face, ovarian cancer isn’t actually more difficult to treat than other cancers like breast, prostate or lung. It is, technically, curable — as long as it is diagnosed early enough that surgery can remove all of the growths before they spread. But because the ovaries are located deep in the reproductive tract, most people are not even aware they have cancer until the malignant cells have spread beyond the ovaries and infiltrated other tissues. Even then, surgery to remove the bulk of the tumors and chemotherapy and radiation to shrivel the remainder can be effective. Yet ovarian cancers tend to retain the upper hand, since they can easily develop resistance to these powerful anti-cancer regimens. Recent revolutions in cancer treatments — from the targeted therapies that zero in on specific cancer cells and eliminate them, to immunotherapies that train the immune system to attack tumors — have provided hope in treating other stubborn cancers. But women with ovarian...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Cancer healthytime Innovation Health Source Type: news