Drug resistance in ovarian cancer: biomarkers and treatments Highlights from the DROC meeting held in Modena (Italy) on the 19th and 20th of February 2009. Scientific topics discussed at the meeting are reported in the present issue.

摘要

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cause of death from cancer and the most common cause of death from gynecologic cancer in women of all ages in the Western world. This primarily reflects the fact that there are no early warning signs, and most patients with epithelial ovarian cancer present at an advanced stage of the pathology at the time of diagnosis. Efforts to improve survival continue to focus on the identification of biomarkers for early diagnosis, the development of more effective systemic therapies, improving drug efficacy, and contrasting drug resistance. Early diagnosis is crucial, marking the difference between a 95% survival rate for cancers found at the earliest stage and 20% survival among patients diagnosed with advanced disease. Drug discovery and development, drug safety, drug delivery, pharmacogenetics, proteo-mics, systems biology, diagnostics for patient selection, and therapy monitoring in clinical trials are essential and strictly interconnected. There is a need to technically and scientifically link the different disciplines to identify a compact strategy to combat this disease. We focus here on the biology and molecular aspects of advanced ovarian cancer. Drug resistance can occur at many levels, including increased drug efflux, drug inactivation, alterations of drug targets, processing of drug-induced damage, and evasion of apoptosis. Advances in methods and technologies for cell biology studies, DNA microarray and proteomic technology, and the ongoing development of new targeted therapies have opened up new opportunities to combat drug resistance.