Ovarian cancer emerging subtypes: Role of oxidative stress and fibrosis in tumour development and response to treatment

Epithelial ovarian cancer is a silent disease of usually late diagnosis and poor prognosis. Currently treatment options are limited and mainly consist of surgery followed by taxol- and platinum-based chemotherapy. Patient response to treatment is difficult to predict and there is a serious need for anticipating tumour response and orientating medical choices. In that aim, recent researches have focused on molecular aspects of ovarian tumours that could help patient stratification. We review here published discoveries in that field. We emphasize that signatures, defined by combining miRNA and transcriptomic data, enlighten important aspects of ovarian cancer biology and reliably stratify patients. The miR-200-dependent Oxidative stress and Fibrosis signatures are promising in patient stratification for defining oriented therapeutic strategies. Indeed, the Stress patients survive longer than the Fibrosis patients, who exhibit partial debulking and incomplete response to chemotherapy. Interestingly, these two subgroups might benefit from specifically targeted therapeutic approaches, as discussed here. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.