Remarks and conclusions on ovarian cancer treatment

Ovarian cancer is still the fourth cause of death by cancer among women and the most fatal among gynecological tumors. The purpose of this symposium h as been to report and discuss the new developments in the treatment of pati ents with ovarian cancer, the majority of whom still present with advanced disease. It also tries to make clear to the participants what is evidence-b ased and what is not. Although the main topic of the symposium is advanced disease, this edition included some updated information on the treatment of early disease under the heading "is early disease really early"; the impor tance of screening and molecular approaches are highlighted. In addition st udies reported in the literature on the role of chemotherapy versus no chem otherapy in high-risk patients with early ovarian cancer have been updated. The pace of new agent development has increased, and it would be helpful to have more efficient preclinical models and early phase-clinical trials to guide the selection of active agents for phase III evaluation. Reaching int ernational consensus is a challenge, but offers the opportunity to test mul tiple regimens more efficiently against a single control population, rather than conducting multiple smaller studies with redundant internal controls. If indeed answers to the relevant questions are to be obtained more quickl y, then a network of current national or international groups could potenti ally facilitate this.