Adjuvant Therapy

Definition: Treatment given after the main or primary treatment. Adjuvant therapy is given to improve the chances of curing the patient's disease.

For ovarian cancer, cytoreductive or debulking surgery is usually considered the primary therapy. Adjuvant therapy options, in order of common usage, are:

• chemotherapy
• biological therapy
• immunotherapy
• hormone therapy
• radiation

(The latter is rarely used for management of ovarian cancer.)

Pronunciation: Ad-joo-vunt ther-ah-pee

Also Known As: adjuvant chemotherapy

Examples: After optimal cytoreductive surgery, she was started on adjuvant therapy with Taxol and carboplatin.