Drug resistance in ovarian cancer and potential for its reversal

Ovarian cancer is characterized as a disease responsive to chemotherapy and current medical treatment strategies are based on the use of a platinum containing anticancer drug, either cisplatin or carboplatin, as the cornerstone of post surgical treatment [1,2]. Unfortunately, the majority of patients with stage III or IV disease are not cured by platinum containing combination chemotherapy and when ovarian cancers recur, especially after short disease-free intervals, they are generally refractory to a variety of other unrelated chemotherapeutic agents [1,3]. It is clear that our understanding of this aspect of ovarian cancer biology could have substantial clinical impact if approaches to reverse the failure of therapy or prevent treatment failure could be discovered.