Cytotoxic effects of aptamer-doxorubicin conjugates in an ovarian cancer cell line.

Despite medical advances in treatment strategies over the past 30-years, epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) continues to be defined by poor patient survival rates and aggressive, drug resistant relapse. Traditional approaches to cancer chemotherapy are typically limited by severe off-target effects on healthy tissue and aggressive drug-resistant recurrence. Recent shifts towards targeted therapies offer the possibility of circumventing the obstacles experienced by these treatments.

Aptamers as potential therapeutic agents for ovarian cancer.

Current therapy for ovarian cancer typically involves indiscriminate chemotherapies that can have severe off target effects on healthy tissue and are still plagued by aggressive recurrence. Recent shifts towards targeted therapies offer the possibility of circumventing the obstacles experienced by these traditional treatments. While antibodies are the pioneering agents in targeted therapies, clinical experience has demonstrated that their antitumor efficacy is limited due to their high immunogenicity, large molecular size, and costly and laborious production.