Molecular stratification of ovarian cancer and its emerging clinical importance

Abstract

The five main histological subtypes of high grade serous ovarian cancer have diverse tissues of origin, different drug sensitivity and widely varying outcome. The most common subtype, high grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSOC) presents with advanced disease at diagnosis and is associated with genomic heterogeneity, DNA repair deficiency and genomic instability.

This talk will discuss the molecular biology of the various subtypes and how this interfaces with recent developments in clinical drug development. Specifically there will be a focus on the recent work of the Scottish Molecular Ovarian Cancer Collaboration which has performed molecular characterisation of 700 high grade serous ovarian cancers to date. Novel findings will be presented and the aspiration of integrating routine molecular sequencing into the patient care pathway across Scotland will be explored.