Ovarian cancer screening and early detection.

One of the most challenging issues in gynecologic oncology is the high mortality rate of ovarian cancer, largely due to detection of disease in advanced stages. Women with early-stage disease have a significantly improved survival rate and may not require chemotherapy. Thus, the issues to examine are whether there are methods to improve early detection, thereby resulting in a reduction in mortality. Several large, randomized, clinical trials have recently completed evaluating CA 125 and transvaginal sonography as effective strategies to accomplish this goal. These issues and the results of the recent trials will be reviewed in this article.