Clinical Medicine Reviews in Oncology

Ovarian cancer (OVCA) and soft tissue sarcoma (STS) are cancers that cause low survival rates when diagnosed at advanced disease stage and patients with these cancers usually suffer from recurrent disease. Trabectedin, an alkaloid of marine origin has recently demonstrated improvement in managing advanced recurrent OVCA and STS. It is currently approved as a single therapeutic agent for second line therapy of STS in the USA and Europe. It is also approved in combination with pegylated liposomal doxorubicin as a second line therapy for OVCA in Europe. This review summarizes recent clinical data demonstrating the efficacy of using trabectedin as a second line therapy in OVCA and in STS.