Multicellular spheroids in ovarian cancer metastases: Biology and pathology

Abstract

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) has a relatively high mortality rate (∼ 55%). One of the presiding causes is that the current chemotherapeutic regimes are unable to achieve sustained remission, despite frequently producing a positive response at first treatment. One of the reasons that EOC is difficult to treat is that the mechanism of dissemination is unusual. EOC dissemination characteristically involves local invasion of pelvic and abdominal organs. Unlike many epithelial cancers, initial dissemination rarely requires the vasculature, although the vasculature is often implicated in the advanced stages of disease. Recently, it has become apparent that aggregates of malignant cells (spheroi..