Cancer-Testis Antigens: A Novel Group of Tumor Biomarkers in Ovarian Cancers

Context: Ovarian cancer is the most fatal gynecological malignancy with no effective screening strategy for early detection. As most cases are being detected in advance stages, conventional therapies are not beneficial for the majority of patients. Cancer-testis antigens (CTAs) are a group of tumor associated antigens with specific expression pattern in cancers which potentiate them for application as cancer biomarkers and targets for immunotherapy. Evidence Acquisition: We performed a computerized search of the MEDLINE/PUBMED databases with key words: ovarian cancer, cancer-testis antigen, biomarker and immunotherapy. Results: Thirty five CTAs have been shown to be expressed in ovarian cancer. At least 13 of them have been shown to elicit immune responses in different studies. The pattern of expression for some of them may facilitate molecular classification of different histologic classes of ovarian cancer. In addition, some CTAs such as NY-ESO-1 and MAGE have been used as targets for immunotherapeutic approaches with promising results. Conclusions: The expression pattern of CTAs in ovarian cancer and the preliminary results of clinical trials indicate that CTAs can be used as targets for immunotherapy of ovarian cancer patients.