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Ovarian carcinoma is the most lethal gynaecological malignancy in the western world with a five year survival rate of appr. 35 %. Unfortunately, most patients present with advanced disease, and their standard treatment is maximal surgical debulking and chemotherapy consisting of carboplatin and taxol. The most important prognostic factor in these patients is residual tumor after primary surgery. In patients with ovarian carcinoma confined to the ovary prognostic factors are important. Currently, high-grade and clear cell histology are regarded as worse prognostic factors, and these patients receive chemotherapy. Studies on prognostic factors in ovarian carcinomas are usually hampered by a low number of patients, and the lack of essential data (residual tumor, chemotherapy, and histological type), making meta-analyses impossible. For the future, prospective studies on putative prognostic factors are necessary. Moreover, for patients with advanced disease the evaluation of predictive factors (chemoresistance) as well as studies on the importance of the inflammatory background present in the tumor-seeded peritoneal cavity will get important. more...