Ovarian cancer is a very aggressive malignant disease with a high mortality rate affecting women typically in their sixth or seventh decade. Frequently, unspecific symptoms such as abdominal discomfort are the first clinical signs of the disease.
Often, there is a spread of the malignancy to the whole abdominal cavity at that time. The back bone of the ovarian cancer therapy is the surgical treatment with an effort for maximal cytoreduction of all the macroscopically visible disease.
Only such a surgery offers an optimal entry to the following systemic therapy. This review article is dealing with current surgical principles and guidelines in the ovarian cancer therapy.