Immunotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer: a further piece of the puzzle or a striking strategy?

Introduction: Treatment of ovarian cancer has been long standardized with the inclusion of surgery and chemotherapy based on platinum and taxanes,this strategy reaching high remission rates. However, when this treatmentfails, further options are available with little benefit. Since ovarian cancerhas specific immunologic features, actually immunotherapy is under evalua- 15tion to overcome treatment failure in patients experiencing recurrence.Areas covered: Immunogenicity of ovarian cancer and its relationship withclinical outcomes is briefly reviewed. The kinds of immunotherapeutic strategiesare summarized. The clinical trials investigating immunotherapy inrecurrent ovarian cancer patients are reported. 20Expert opinion: The results of these clinical trials about immunotherapy areinteresting, but little clinical benefit has been achieved until now. For thisreason, we could conclude that immunotherapy is quite different from othertreatment options and it could change the global approach for recurrentovarian cancer treatment. However, to date only fragmentary findings are 25available to define the real role of immunotherapy in this setting.