Tumor heterogeneity has important consequences for personalized medicine in ovarian cancer

Ting Gui, Dongyan Cao, Jiaxin Yang and Keng Shen

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China

Offprint requests to: Keng Shen, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Peking Union Medical College, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, China e-mail: sk_shenkeng@sina.com

Summary. Most patients with ovarian cancers relapse, and treatment failure has often been attributed to chemoresistance in tumor cells. Emerging evidence indicates that tumor heterogeneity may play an equally important role. Although the idea of tumor heterogeneity is not new, little attention has been focused on applying it to understand and control ovarian cancer progression. Recent advances in understanding its generation model, original basis, consequent problems, and derived therapies provide great potential for tumor heterogeneity to be a new insight in treatment of ovarian cancers. Histol Histopathol 30, 173-181 (2015)

Key words: Tumor heterogeneity, Chemoresistance, Ovarian cancer, Personalized medicine, Therapy

DOI: 10.14670/HH-30.173