Abstract: The early detection rate of ovarian cancer is low, and more than 70 percentages of patients are diagnosed at advanced stages. The prognosis is too poor because of widespread metastasis and chemoresistance. Cathepsin L (CTSL) is an important member of cathepsin family, distributing intracellularly and extracellularly and participating in the degradation of diverse proteins. CTSL is overexpressed in a variety of malignant tumor tissues and the level of CTSL is high in ovarian cancer tissues and the serum of patients. CTSL can promote the growth, metastasis, chemoresistance and angiogenesis of ovarian cancer. Serum CTSL level is helpful in the diagnosis of ovarian cancer in combination with other biological markers. On the other hand, experimental researches have revealed that targeting CTSL is effective to control the progression of ovarian cancer. Therefore, investigating the role of CTSL in the progression of ovarian cancer more deeply is promising to supply more clues for the diagnosis and therapy of ovarian cancer, and here we will review the progression in this area.

Key words: Ovarian neoplasms, Cysteine endopeptidases, Neoplasm metastasis, Drug resistance, neoplasm, Cathepsin L