Ovarian cancer patients with high CA-125 but no symptoms--should antiangiogenic treatments be considered?

In ovarian cancer patients, the duration of complete response after successful cancer chemotherapy is often short-lived. During that time period, patients usually receive no further maintenance therapy. Ovarian cancer patients in complete remission, however, often begin to show steady increases in their plasma levels of cancer antigen CA-125, 4-6 months before the recurrence of clinical symptoms. For these individuals, we are proposing the administration of angiogenesis inhibitors as a maintenance therapy. Although, in ovarian cancer, CA-125 provides a unique opportunity in identifying those patients requiring further treatment, this concept could be applied to other forms of cancer as other prognostic indicators become available.