Treatment for Stage III Ovarian Cancer

All cancers, when diagnosed, are staged. The higher the stage, the greater the severity of the cancer. Stage III ovarian cancer means the disease has spread outside of the ovaries and pelvic area to the upper abdominal area and/or surrounding lymph nodes. This stage requires a more aggressive treatment than stage one or two ovarian cancer, in which the cancer may be more localized.

Personalized Treatment

• Although a woman is diagnosed with stage III ovarian cancer, her situation may differ from another woman with the same diagnosis. Though it has spread, it may not have spread to the same areas or as far. Therefore, each woman will have a treatment plan unique to her diagnosis and situation. Doctors will first look at the purpose of the treatment: Are they treating to increase her chance of being cured, to prolong her survival, or to control the cancer by keeping it localized. Before beginning treatment, the doctor will explain the treatment options to her, explain both the benefits and risks, and allow her to make the best decision for herself.

Surgical Debulking

• This process is the standard treatment for women with stage III ovarian cancer and involves removing as much of the tumor as possible. Because there are generally small, undetectable amounts of cancer that have spread outside of the ovaries, and it's not possible to remove them during surgery, another method of treatment needs to be used in combination with surgery. This most common method is chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy

• Chemotherapy is the use of anticancer drugs that are injected into the body either orally or intravenously to destroy any remaining cancer cells and prevent them from dividing and reproducing. The presence of micrometasteses, small amounts of undetected cancer, can lead to recurrence of ovarian cancer if surgery is the only treatment used. A combination of chemotherapy drugs is generally used to increase the rate of success, and they typically include a platinum compound drug such as cisplatin or paraplatin and another anticancer drug such as paclitaxal or docetaxal. These are usually given in six cycles, every three weeks.

High-dose Chemotherapy

• New forms of treatment are constantly being studied to improve the success of ovarian cancer treatment. These are either studied alone or in clinical trials with participants. One of the treatments currently being examined is the use of high-dose chemotherapy. Though some women experience success with typical chemotherapy treatments, researchers believe that delivering higher doses of chemotherapy drugs may improve the chances of being cured. The reasoning behind this that more chemo results in more cancer cells being destroyed.