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Ovarian cancer: progression of tumors

Part 2 of 2
Published on July 31, 2019   35 min

Other Talks in the Series: The Female Reproductive System: from Basic Science to Fertility Treatments

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0:05
Let me discuss quickly about this question of the origin and progression of ovarian cancer.
0:13
Where is ovarian cancer originated? Where are these stem cells coming from that will form these ovarian tumors and then give origin to this disseminated disease, that are the characteristics of ovarian cancer?
0:31
Ovarian cancer is defined as a single disease and all the therapeutic approaches are the same for all the ovarian cancer patients. Moreover, the discovery of markers for the disease has been focused on a single type of markers that will recognize all the different types of disease. What do I mean with different types of disease? When we look at the histology of ovarian cancer, they are different. There is ovarian cancer mucinous, there is ovarian cancer endometrioid, there is ovarian cancer clear cell carcinomas, and there is ovarian cancer high-grade serous. But again, all of them we call them ovarian cancer and we treat them exactly the same.
1:20
The traditional view for the origin of the ovarian cancer has been that, the surface epithelium of the ovaries, during the repair at the time of ovulation will create invaginations within the tumor. These invaginations will become malignant and from these epithelial invaginations, you will have a serous ovarian cancer, an endometrioid ovarian cancer, a clear cell carcinoma, a transitional, and even a mucinous, from the same epithelium. We go further a few years and around 2009,