Review

Mucins in ovarian cancer diagnosis and therapy

Subhash C Chauhan^1,2 , Deepak Kumar³ and Meena Jaggi^1,2

¹  Cancer Biology Research Center, Sanford Research/USD, Sioux Falls, SD, USA

²  Department of OB/GYN and Basic Biomedical Science Division, Sanford School of Medicine, Sioux Falls, SD, USA

³  Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of the District of Columbia, Washington, DC, USA

author email corresponding author email

Journal of Ovarian Research 2009, 2:21doi:10.1186/1757-2215-2-21

Published:	24 December 2009

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal gynecologic malignancy and the five-year survival rate is only 35% after diagnosis. Epithelial ovarian cancer is a highly metastatic disease characterized by widespread peritoneal dissemination and ascites. The death incidences from ovarian cancer could be significantly lowered by developing new methods for the early diagnosis and treatment of this fatal disease. Several potential markers have been identified recently. However, mucins are the most promising markers for ovarian cancer diagnosis. Mucins are large extracellular, heavily glycosylated proteins and their aberrant expression has been implicated in the pathogenesis of a variety of cancers, including ovarian cancer. This review will summarize known facts about the pathological and molecular characteristics of ovarian cancer, the current status of ovarian cancer markers, as well as general information about mucins, the putative role of mucins in the progression of ovarian cancer and their potential use for the early diagnosis and treatment of this disease.