Significant Steps Made In Determining Susceptibility to Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal of all gynecological malignancies. This is in part because of the symptomology of the disease until it is at a late stage. Because of the five-year survival rate is only 45% while the actual cause of epithelial cancer of the ovary or fallopian tube is not known, studies have found about 15% are shown to be connected with the inherited genetic factors such as BRCA 1&2 mutations. The standard line of defense is surgery and treatment with platinum-based chemotherapy. Unfortunately, recurrence is high with the recurring disease resistant to further chemotherapy. Recently olaparib has shown some promise in treating BRCA 1&2 mutations that have led to ovarian cancer. It is thought this occurs along the DNA repair pathways that make the cancer cells sensitive to olaparib. The validity of the study's data was confirmed by repeated tests across different fields (Fleury et al. 2017).