Many with Ovarian Cancer Try Maintenance Therapy to Buy Time

From the results gathered, it was noted that the main objectives of the majority of patients who choose to undergo maintenance therapy were to increase their chances of a cure (75%), improve their quality of life (14%), shrink their tumor (32% with primary cancer and 45% with recurrent cancer), as well as decrease CA-125 (40%). While a slight difference was seen between younger and older patients with primary or recurrent cancer in terms of how long maintenance therapy would be able to delay progression of ovarian cancer, both groups expressed ‘tumor delay’ as the main contributing factor for undergoing maintenance therapy.

“There is a high need for more information and patient education regarding maintenance therapy goals and side effects,” said Prof. Dr. Sehouli. It is this information that can increase patient compliance for maintenance therapy in ovarian cancer. “To me, it’s almost a no brainer that continuing therapy that has proven to be effective and safe in a specific patient makes all the sense in the world—it’s the ultimate targeted therapy. It gives such patients a longer time cancer-free and an improvement in survival measured in months,” said Mark Kris, chief of the Thoracic Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.