{"doi":"10.3389/fcell.2020.00647","title":"Are Epithelial Ovarian Cancers of the Mesenchymal Subtype Actually Intraperitoneal Metastases to the Ovary?","abstract":"Primary ovarian high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) has been classified into 4 molecular subtypes: Immunoreactive, Proliferative, Differentiated, and Mesenchymal (Mes), of which the Mes subtype (Mes-HGSC) is associated with the worst clinical outcomes. We propose that Mes-HGSC comprise clusters of cancer and associated stromal cells that detached from tumors in the upper abdomen/omentum and disseminated in the peritoneal cavity, including to the ovary. Using comparative analyses of multiple transcriptomic data sets, we provide the following evidence that the phenotype of Mes-HGSC matches the phenotype of tumors in the upper abdomen/omentum: (1) irrespective of the primary ovarian HGSC molecular subtype, matched upper abdominal/omental metastases were typically of the Mes subtype, (2) the Mes subtype was present at the ovarian site only in patients with concurrent upper abdominal/omental metastases and not in those with HGSC confined to the ovary, and (3) ovarian Mes-HGSC had an expression profile characteristic of stromal cells in the upper abdominal/omental metastases. We suggest that ovarian Mes-HGSC signifies advanced intraperitoneal tumor dissemination to the ovary rather than a subtype of primary ovarian HGSC. This is consistent with the presence of upper abdominal/omental disease, suboptimal debulking, and worst survival previously reported in patients with ovarian Mes-HGSC compared to other molecular subtypes.","journal":"Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology","year":2020,"id":100840,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":28,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9539,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":494989,"name":"Barbie Taylor‐Harding","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494990,"name":"Yael Raz","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":494991,"name":"Marcela Haro","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426210,"name":"María Sol Recouvreux","orcid":"0000-0002-8064-9381","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":305254,"name":"Enes Taylan","orcid":"0000-0002-0445-1250","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":33537,"name":"Jenny Lester","orcid":"0000-0003-4914-3275","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":33504,"name":"Joshua Millstein","orcid":"0000-0001-7961-8943","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":426211,"name":"Ann E. Walts","orcid":"0000-0002-6893-5748","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1719,"name":"Beth Y. Karlan","orcid":"0000-0002-9451-2933","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1725,"name":"Sandra Oršulić","orcid":"0000-0001-5119-8721","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":291401,"name":"Ye Hu","orcid":"0000-0001-7255-5409","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":53,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:39:01.863288Z","pmid":"32766252","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}