Ovarian cancer survival rates on the rise

Researchers are making great strides in fighting many forms of cancer by looking at and targeting the disease’s genetics.

Patients with ovarian cancer are benefiting from this, as the survival rate had increased from months to years in many cases.

Ovarian cancer is often called a silent killer. Symptoms are vague, making it difficult to detect until it’s in the late stages. That’s only one of the issues that made it so deadly.

“It may go from a very early stage to an advanced age at a relatively rapid pace,” said Dr. Edward Grendys, a gynecologic oncologist.

Fort Myers Cancer Specialist Dr. Edward Grendys focuses on gynecologic disease. He’s seen the ovarian cancer survival rate stretch in recent years due in part to advances in genetic studies that look at the cells within cancerous tumors to understand how they mutate and reproduce.

“If the tumors are what is referred to as BRCA positive or another mutation called homologous recombination deficient. These are all pathways, very complex on how we naturally repair our own DNA. If you happen to have one of the deficiencies of that, we now have amazing clinical trials.

A big leap forward was the creation of a parp inhibitor. Parp is an enzyme that repairs DNA. An inhibitor stops it. New targeted drugs are interrupting the cancer cycle.

“Which helps basically take command of these genetic apparatuses that repair our DNA and basically causes them to function differently,” Grendys said.

This allows the cancer cells to die off. Used in combination with other drugs, parp inhibitors are changing the course of the disease.

“We now have amazing data to suggest not only a better progression-free survival, meaning how long the patient goes from the last chemotherapy until a tumor comes back, but now we actually have an overall survival advantage, and we are starting to banter the cure word around a little bit,” Grendys said.

A far different outcome than many people thought possible.

Almost 22,000 women developed ovarian cancer this year. Experts project that 12,000 will die from it, but those numbers are going down.