Prof Christian Marth discusses whether clinicians should continue to follow-up ovarian cancer patients using the CA-125 tumour marker. A recent study has shown that early treatment in response to a rise in this tumour marker does not increase patient survival; however the patients in this study did not undergo surgery, which is known to increase survival. Prof Marth talks about the reliability of this marker, and explains the progress that has been made using treatment with trabectedin and pegylated liposomal doxorubicin to increase the platinum free interval in ovarian cancer patients and subsequently increase overall survival.