Emerging Protein Biomarkers in Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Prognosis: An Aid for Multivariate Indexing

Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is a chronic and degenerative disease propelled by a mutation in BRCA1/2 genes, familial history, smoking and polycystic ovary syndrome. Although the lifetime risk of ovarian cancer is low, yet it is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Surprisingly, EOC represents 90% of all ovarian cancers, out of which 70% of women are diagnosed with the malignancy at its advanced III-IV stages. Early detection may increase the life expectancy up to 5 years. Thus, it has become the need of the hour to attain improvement of clinical outcomes of EOC and improve the life expectancy of patients. A plethora of proteins in different biological fluids may serve as prospective identifiers for the disease. Over the years, accurate identification of proteins secreted by EOC cells has been perfected by in vitro and in silico state-of-theart technologies. Multivariate test, consisting of histo-pathological data in combination with protein biomarker panel has paved way for enhanced and accurate assessment of EOC; still, there is a chance of further improvement. This review encompasses the advances made in ovarian cancer biomarker discovery and demonstrates their potential usefulness for the design of early diagnostics of EOC.