Abstract: Ovarian cancer is a common gynecological malignancy with the highest mortality. Concealed clinical manifestations, recurrence and metastasis, and insensitivity to radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the main causes of poor prognosis of ovarian cancer. Early diagnosis plays an important role in improving the prognosis of ovarian cancer. At present, there are no optimal serum markers for the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer. Clinical biomarkers for evaluation of the rapeutic efficacy and prognosis are lacking in specificity. Circulating tumor cells (CTCs) test has the advantages of minimal invasion, real-time and high specificity, etc. More and more gynecologic oncologists have begun to pay attention to and further investigate this technique, which called ′liquid biopsy′, in ovarian cancer. This article reviews the research progress and application of CTCs in epithelial ovarian cancer.

Key words: Ovarian neoplasms, Early diagnosis, Prognosis, Treatment outcome, Circulating tumor cells, Epithelial ovarian caner