While the rate at which women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer has been slowly falling an average of 2.3% per year over the past 10 years, the 5-year survival rate has only increased by ~4%.2 Ovarian cancer remains the fifth leading cause of cancer death in women in the United States and the eighth leading cause of cancer death in women globally.1,3
Overall, ovarian cancer is rare, but women with a family history of ovarian cancer have an increased risk for the disease.2 It has been estimated that ~22% of the risk of ovarian cancer is attributable to heritable factors. Germline, or inherited, genetics may play a role over the entire course of ovarian cancer, from its inception to the response of patients to chemotherapy.14 The quintessential example is patients who have germline mutations in either BRCA1/2 are at a higher risk of developing ovarian cancer. In a seminal paper analyzing over 8000 unselected cases of breast or ovarian cancer, the average cumulative risk of developing ovarian cancer with a BRCA1/2 mutation was 39% and 11% respectively.18
All types of ovarian cancer are characterized by early peritoneal spread of metastases.4 The vast majority of ovarian cancers are high-grade serous carcinomas (HGSCs).5 These are aggressive tumors and account for approximately 70% of deaths due to ovarian cancer.5,6