Ovarian/Primary Peritoneal Carcinoma

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer among women worldwide, accounting for nearly 4% of all female malignancies, and it has the highest fatality-to-case ratio of all gynecologic cancers. Globally, an estimated 230,555 new cases were diagnosed and 141,452 women died of ovarian cancer in 2007.¹ The disease has variable incidence in different geographic regions and among different ethnic groups, with a high incidence in Northern Europe and in the U.S., and a low incidence in Japan and in developing countries. Ovarian cancer is rarely diagnosed in women under the age of 30 years; disease incidence increases with age, reaching its peak at the age of 60 years. The majority of cases are sporadic, and only 10% of the affected women have family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Hereditary ovarian cancer is most frequently related to germline mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, the remaining cases being due to hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) or Lynch Syndrome.^{2 - 4}