Maintenance Treatment of Recurrent Ovarian Cancer: Is It Ready for Prime Time?

Cet article passe en revue les essais évaluant l'efficacité des agents anti-angiogéniques ou des inhibiteurs de PARP utilisés en traitement d'entretien chez des patientes atteintes d'un cancer épithélial de l'ovaire, fait le point sur la toxicité de ces agents et évalue les enjeux liés à la préservation de la qualité de vie des patientes

Résumé en anglais

Approximately 1% of women in the United States will be diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) during their lifetime. It is most likely to present at a more advanced stage, requiring aggressive therapeutic measures, and most women will succumb to this illness. Due to advancements in therapy, the oncology community has begun to shift its focus to molecular targeted agents, alternative dosing schedules, and maintenance therapy. Women who achieve a response to initial adjuvant chemotherapy may be candidates for maintenance therapy, with the goal of inducing a lasting remission or prolonging the disease-free interval before recurrence. The rationale for maintenance therapy is to delay disease progression by eliminating residual, slowly-dying cancerous cells, or impeding cell turnover. This review discusses the goals of maintenance therapy for EOC with antiangiogenic agents or poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitors, and reviews clinical studies that have demonstrated improvements in survival outcomes. The side-effect profiles for PARP inhibitors and the implications for preserving quality of life during maintenance therapy will also be discussed