Maintenance Therapy in the Primary Treatment of Epithelial Ovarian Cancer.

Despite aggressive upfront treatment with a combination of surgery and chemotherapy, most women with advanced epithelial malignancy will experience disease recurrence. The goal of treatment in the recurrent setting shifts away from a curative approach towards palliation of symptoms. In an attempt to delay time to first recurrence, the concept of maintenance chemotherapy emerged. This paper reviews the available literature evaluating the use of maintenance chemotherapy in the primary treatment setting and its effect on progression-free survival and overall survival.