p53 status and response to paclitaxel-based chemotherapy in patients with advanced epithelial ovarian cancer

Several experimental and clinical data showed that p53 gene alterations are involved in the failure of platinum-induced apoptosis in chemoresistant ov arian cancer. Conversely, paclitaxel (TAX) seems to be able to enhance apop tosis through a p53-independent pathway. By genetic analysis we assessed p5 3 status in tissue samples collected from primary tumors during initial sur gery in 27 advanced epithelial ovarian cancer patients who subsequently rec eived six cycles of combination chemotherapy including TAX 175 mg/m2 + carb oplatin AUC6 +/- epirubicin 75 mg/m2. After the sixth cycle of chemotherapy a clinical complete response was found in 8 (44.4%) of the 18 patients wit h mutated p53 compared to 6 (66.7%) of the 9 patients with wild-type p53 (p =ns). These preliminary data seem to suggest that p53 status is not a biolo gical variable predictive of response to TAX-based chemotherapy in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer patients.