Biological markers of prognosis, response to therapy and outcome in ovarian carcinoma.

Introduction: Ovarian cancer (OvCa) is among the most common types of cancer and is the leading cause of death from gynecological malignancies in western countries. Cancer biomarkers have a potential for improving the management of OvCa patients at every point from screening and detection, diagnosis, prognosis, follow up, response to therapy and outcome.

Areas Covered: The literature search has indicated a number of candidate biomarkers have recently emerged that could facilitate the molecular definition of OvCa, providing information about prognosis and predicting response to therapy. These potentially promising biomarkers include immune cells and their products, tumor-derived exosomes, nucleic acids and epigenetic biomarkers. Expert commentary: Although most of the biomarkers available today require prospective validation, the development of noninvasive liquid biopsy-based monitoring promises to improve their utility for evaluations of prognosis, response to therapy and outcome in OvCa.