Epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is a chronic and degenerative disease propelled by a mutation in BRCA1/2 genes, familial history, smoking and polycystic ovary syndrome. Although the lifetime risk of ovarian cancer is low, yet it is the fifth leading cause of cancer-related deaths. Surprisingly, EOC represents 90% of all ovarian cancers, out of which 70% of women are diagnosed with the malignancy at its advanced III-IV stages. Early detection may increase the life expectancy up to 5 years. Thus, it has become the need of the hour to attain improvement of clinical outcomes of EOC and improve the life expectancy of patients. A plethora of proteins in different biological fluids may serve as prospective identifiers for the disease. Over the years, accurate identification of proteins secreted by EOC cells has been perfected by in vitro and in silico state-of-theart technologies. Multivariate test, consisting of histo-pathological data in combination with protein biomarker panel has paved way for enhanced and accurate assessment of EOC; still, there is a chance of further improvement. This review encompasses the advances made in ovarian cancer biomarker discovery and demonstrates their potential usefulness for the design of early diagnostics of EOC.

上皮性卵巢癌 (EOC) 是一种由 BRCA1/2 基因突变、家族史、吸烟和多囊卵巢综合征引起的慢性退行性疾病。尽管卵巢癌的终生风险很低，但它是癌症相关死亡的第五大原因。令人惊讶的是，EOC 占所有卵巢癌的 90%，其中 70% 的女性在 III-IV 晚期被诊断出患有恶性肿瘤。早期发现可将预期寿命延长至 5 年。因此，改善 EOC 的临床结果和提高患者的预期寿命已成为当务之急。不同生物体液中的大量蛋白质可作为该疾病的潜在标识符。这些年来，EOC 细胞分泌的蛋白质的准确鉴定已通过体外和计算机先进技术完善。由组织病理学数据和蛋白质生物标志物组合组成的多变量测试为增强和准确评估 EOC 铺平了道路；尽管如此，仍有进一步改进的机会。本综述涵盖了在卵巢癌生物标志物发现方面取得的进展，并证明了它们对 EOC 早期诊断设计的潜在有用性。