Advancing women's cancer care: highlights from the Annual Meeting on Women's Cancer 2007. Report on the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists, San Diego, Calif., March 3-7, 2007.

Importance of Specialist Care and Centralization for Ovarian Cancer Patients It is not a new concept that ovarian cancer patients benefit from being treated in centers with large numbers of patients. Nevertheless, Dr. John Chan from Standford University (abstract 17) reported one of the largest published series. They retrospectively evaluated the outcome of nearly 1,500 women (stage IC–IV) treated by a gynecologic oncologist or a physician other than a gynecologic oncologist. The 5-year survival rate was 39% for those treated by specialists and 30% for the other group; the difference was statistically significant at p ! 0.001. In multivariate analysis, patients who were treated by a specialist were significantly more likely to be more affluent, live in urban regions and have a better education.