title: Ovarian cancer: use of multiple modality programs involving surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy.
abstract: Appreciating the past reports of effectiveness for various therapeutic modalities in ovarian cancer, the Gynecologic Oncology Group activated eight protocols. Three involved epithelial lesions with randomized multimodality trials alone or in combination. The other protocols were devoted to registration of rare tumor case reports. Conclusions are still difficult to reach due to inconsistencies in pathologic diagnoses and deficiencies in radiation therapy, chemotherapy and surgery inherent in the initial phases of group development by diverse specialist in oncology. Adjuvant therapy for early cancer seems to have no advantage. Single drug, melphalan therapy may be as effective as multi-drug, irradiation or combined drug-irradiation therapy and less toxic. For the rare tumors, preliminary results suggest therapeutic advantage for at least one triple drug program in malignant teratoma. With the lessons of the past, it is anticipated that new studies briefly described herewith may be more effectively applied.
mesh_terms: D006585:Altretamine / Q000627:therapeutic use; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003520:Cyclophosphamide / Q000627:therapeutic use; D003609:Dactinomycin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004317:Doxorubicin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004359:Drug Therapy, Combination; D005260:Female; D005472:Fluorouracil / Q000627:therapeutic use; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy; D008558:Melphalan / Q000627:therapeutic use; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy / Q000601:surgery / Q000628:therapy*; D011425:Propionibacterium acnes / Q000276:immunology; D011879:Radiotherapy Dosage
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D003609:Dactinomycin; D004317:Doxorubicin; D003520:Cyclophosphamide; D008558:Melphalan; D006585:Altretamine; D005472:Fluorouracil