PROBLEM DEFINITION/OBJECTIVE: Ovarian cancer is the 5th most lethal cancer in the world due
to the fact that tumours are detected at late stage of disease, currently without curative
therapies at that stage. Standard therapy consists of surgery and chemotherapy. Despite this
aggressive treatment overall five year survival is only 30%. Tumors are driven by cellular
signal transduction (ST) pathways. Identifying activity of these pathways in cancer tissue
can be used to choose an appropriate targeted drug. A number of targeted therapy drugs have
become available, or are being developed that target individual ST pathways. Identification
of the predominant ST pathway in cancer has shown to be extremely difficult. A newly
developed reliable mRNA analysis technique (STAnalysis) is able to assess which pathway/s
is/are active indicating which targeted therapy is deemed to be effective.
STUDY DESIGN: A multicentre prospective cohort study. STUDY POPULATION: Patients with
platinum-refractory/resistant or recurrent ovarian cancer.
DIAGNOSTIC INTERVENTION & COMPARATOR: Analysis of the prevalent ST pathway and targeted
therapy towards this pathway.
OUTCOME MEASURES: Increase in survival.