At age 33, doctors told Cindy Weiss she had ovarian cancer. You know, I remember the day the phone call came. And when I heard that, I was not as scared about the diagnosis. I was more upset and terrified over the fact that I wouldn't realize the life dreams and the opportunities that I had hoped for – of getting married, of becoming a mother. 14 years ago, Cindy endured a hysterectomy, radiation, and chemotherapy. For three years, she was cancer free, but the disease came back, which meant more chemo. It's been 10 years since my second diagnosis, and at the moment, everything looks great. Successful treatment from a team at Mayo Clinic has allowed Cindy to realize her dreams. She's married and has a seven-year-old daughter. I've had cancer twice. Question's always there. Will it come back a third time?

As an ovarian cancer researcher and as well as a medical oncologist, I am actually filled with hope. I think this is a really exciting time. Dr. Andrea Wahner Hendrickson says since Cindy's diagnosis, researchers have developed new and more effective treatment options for women who have ovarian cancer. She explains four of these options, which are PARP inhibitors, HIPEC therapy, individualized therapies, and vaccines.

I think the most exciting change that has developed is really the development of PARP inhibitors. PARP is a protein that helps to repair damaged DNA in cancer cells as they divide. PARP inhibitors block the protein from functioning, so cancer cells die. Ovarian cancer is a tumor that, thankfully, does respond really nicely to surgery and chemotherapy. So in most cases, we can get women into a remission. Unfortunately, in roughly 70% of patients, we do see recurrence, and that's really where the PARP inhibitors are playing a role now. That being said, there is a lot of interest in pushing it forward to first line therapy. So there are clinical trials in first line therapy really with a goal of hoping to really reduce that recurrence rate.

The second new treatment is called HIPEC therapy, which involves administering heated chemotherapy directly into the abdomen at the time of surgery. The third new option is individualized medicine. This involves testing tumors for specific markers that determine which treatments will work best. The fourth new treatment option is an ovarian cancer vaccine, which right now is used to prevent recurrence of the disease. We ultimately want to move our vaccines into primary prevention. We want to give these to healthy individuals so that we can actually prevent the development of disease. Not all tumors respond to every treatment. Dr. Wahner Hendrickson recommends all ovarian cancer patients undergo genetic testing to see which therapy might work best for them.

I think that really gives me a lot of hope. You know, I don't want to think about being diagnosed again, but while I hope I never have to hear those words again, I think that the way technology has changed, the way medicine has changed, the way the work has changed really offers a lot of hope to people like me. I think there's a lot of promise and hope out there, and that's what keeps me going every day. For the Mayo Clinic News Network, I'm Vivian Williams.