Management of early ovarian cancer.

About one third of the women diagnosed with ovarian cancer present with localized disease. Accurate surgical staging is required to properly evaluate these patients, define appropriate treatment, and establish prognosis. A series of recent studies have clarified which patients can be managed with comprehensive surgical staging and disease removal alone, and which may benefit from adjuvant therapy. A series of national and international prospective randomized trials are evaluating a variety of adjuvant treatments that may enhance long-term survival in those patients with early ovarian cancer who do require additional therapy.