Getting to know ovarian cancer spheroid: opportunity for spheroid-targeted therapy

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is the most lethal gynecological cancer among women (1). Despite great improvement in cancer therapy during past decade, survival of EOC remains disappointing with overall 5-year survival rate of approximate 46%. The high lethality of EOC is attributed to the rapid and early metastasis and lack of early detection. Seventy percent of EOC patients were diagnosed in advanced stage disease (FIGO III or IV) thus losing the opportunity of curative surgery (2). For these patients, cytoreductive surgery plus adjuvant chemotherapy is the last treatment option. Nevertheless, although most patients initially respond to current chemotherapeutic regimes, relapse common with recurrent rate of approximately 75% within 3 years (3). Therefore, it is imperative to reveal the mechanism underlying EOC metastasis and drug resistance for new treatment strategy development and improvement of clinical outcomes.