Abstract
Aggressive and recurrent gynecological cancers are associated with worse prognosis and a lack of effective therapeutic response. Ovarian cancer (OC) patients are often diagnosed in advanced stages, when drug resistance, angiogenesis, relapse, and metastasis impact survival outcomes. Currently, surgical debulking, radiotherapy, and/or chemotherapy remain the mainstream treatment modalities; however, patients suffer unwanted side effects and drug resistance in the absence of targeted therapies. Hence, it is urgent to decipher the complex disease biology and identify potential biomarkers, which could greatly contribute to making an early diagnosis or predicting the response to specific therapies. This review aims to critically discuss the current therapeutic strategies for OC, novel drug-delivery systems, and potential biomarkers in the context of genetics and molecular research. It emphasizes how the understanding of disease biology is related to the advancement of technology, enabling the exploration of novel biomarkers that may be able to provide more accurate diagnosis and prognosis, which would effectively translate into targeted therapies, ultimately improving patients’ overall survival and quality of life.
Highlights
Ovarian cancer (OC) is the presence of abnormal cells that initially grow in the ovary and reproduce out of control, which can form a tumor malignancy when they spread into the surrounding tissues [1,2]
Due to a lack of precise diagnostic biomarkers, the majority of women with ovarian cancer are diagnosed at an advanced stage, which reduces their chances of survival
Chemotherapy resistance in late-stage ovarian cancer is a significant clinical challenge, because various signaling pathways are involved in the pathophysiology of chemotherapy resistance
Summary
Ovarian cancer (OC) is the presence of abnormal cells that initially grow in the ovary and reproduce out of control, which can form a tumor malignancy when they spread into the surrounding tissues [1,2]. Understanding the biology of heterogeneous OCs is vital for exploring the disease’s mechanisms more accurately [4]. Potential therapeutic targets for the management of OC are being explored, such as intrinsic signaling pathways, angiogenesis, hormone receptors, and immunologic factors. Bevacizumab, the most-studied anti-VEGF-targeted therapy inhibiting angiogenesis in the tumor microenvironment, holds great promise for OC treatment, but redundant angiogenic pathways make the drug show only modest efficacy [5,6,10,11]. To understand the disease’s pathophysiology, it is essential to thoroughly investigate the regulatory mechanisms in terms of the different molecular layers and time intervals, which may clearly demonstrate the disease dynamics [16,17]. The present study attempted to evaluate the recent understanding of ovarian cancer associated with signaling mechanisms, targeted therapeutic strategies, and potential drug delivery systems. The interplay between technological advancement and the management of this heterogeneous disease from diverse perspectives is highlighted
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