When a person has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, their doctor will work with them to decide what treatment is right for them. Often, one will have to face the fact that one will be undergoing multiple treatments at the same time. Listed below are the main treatments employed when one has ovarian cancer:

Surgery
Surgery is usually the first step when it comes to treating ovarian cancer. Surgery is done to take out the piece of the mass to check whether it is cancer, which is commonly known as a biopsy. Surgery helps in deciding the stage of cancer and checks how far or how much it has spread. If the cancer is confirmed, the surgeon will take out as much of the cancerous tumor as possible. Also, exactly how much or how many surgeries one will have solely depends on how far cancer cells have spread. In certain cases, the fallopian tubes, cervix, uterus, and ovaries could need to be removed. Other tissue usually removed includes all visible cancer including the omentum and lymph nodes. If one wants to have children in the future or whose surgery is in the very early stages, doctors might not remove all of their reproductive organs.

Chemotherapy
Also known as ‘chemo’, this treatment method injects the medicine into the body directly. One might require to get chemo for getting rid of all and any cancer cells which are still prevalent in the body even after the surgery. One usually receives these powerful medications via an IV. However, in some cases of ovarian cancer, the chemo works better if the medicine is injected into the abdomen. This allows and ensures that the medicine comes into direct contact with the part of the body where the cancer previously was and is most likely to spread again.

Radiation
This is one of the main treatments for ovarian cancer, which involves using high-energy X-rays over the pelvic area of the person who has ovarian cancer. It could help in killing any leftover cancer cells. The radiation is administered just like a regular X-ray. It is particularly used to help control symptoms such as pain or if there has been a relapse even after the treatment.

Targeted Therapy
Targeted therapy uses newer medications which find and attack cancer cells, while causing little harm to the surrounding normal cells. Targeted therapy medicines all work in different ways, but they are able to stop the cancerous cells from fixing, dividing, and growing themselves. The medications are either administered by IV or orally.

Hormone therapy
In certain cases, doctors might suggest patients implement therapy as one of the main treatments for ovarian cancer. According to the ACS (American Cancer Society), hormone therapy is not used for treating epithelial ovarian cancer but ovarian stromal tumors.

Clinical Trials
There are always studies being conducted to take a closer look at new main procedures and treatments for ovarian cancer. One could take part in these trials and obtain access to all the latest state-of-the-art treatments. However, one needs to take their doctor’s opinion about this.