Ovarian cancer (OC) remains to be one of the most common gynecological malignancies and is characterized by a high mortality and a poor prognosis. Cytoreductive surgery and chemotherapy remain the backbone of the OC treatment, but despite this strategy most women will experience disease recurrence. For these patients there is a large unmet need for more effective therapies. Despite the compelling evidence for the fact that OC is an immunogenic tumor, studies evaluating immune checkpoint inhibitors have yielded largely disappointing results. Several therapeutic strategies are currently being studied to boost response rates to anti-PD1/PD-L1, including the addition of chemotherapy, anti-angiogenic agents, PARP inhibitors, or other immune checkpoint inhibitors. In addition to this, other immunotherapeutic approaches such as adoptive T-cell therapy, vaccines and therapeutic targeting of myeloid immune checkpoints such as the “don’t eat me” signal CD47 are also being investigated in OC. While several of these options are promising, large controlled randomized studies are still needed to implement new immunotherapeutic options into clinical practice.
