Extracellular vesicle-based liquid biopsy holds great promise for the management of ovarian cancer
Ovarian cancer is a highly lethal gynecological disease because most patients are diagnosed in advanced stages due to a lack of appropriate markers or methods for early detection. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small biological vesicles released by all types of cells and are widely distributed in biofluids. These vesicles and their bioactive contents are involved in various aspects of tumorigenesis and development, and some of them could be detected in biofluids from liquid biopsy and used as markers for cancer management. Liquid biopsy is a recently developed method for disease diagnosis and real-time monitoring by detecting biomolecules in biofluids such as plasma. The operation is minimally invasive and relatively convenient, especially for patients with cancer. In this review, we describe the use of EV-based liquid biopsy in ovarian cancer and summarize recent advances in technologies for EV isolation and detection, as well as biomarkers identified from ovarian cancer-derived EVs, with a focus on their potential roles in diagnosis and progression monitoring. Although the advantages of liquid biopsy make this approach promising, some technological challenges remain, and qualified biomarkers for clinical use are still being explored.