The combination of gemcitabine and carboplatin shows similar efficacy in the treatment of platinum-resistant and platinum-sensitive recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer patients

The aim of this study was to evaluate progression-free survival, overall survival (OS), response rate (RR), and clinical benefit in recurrent ovarian cancer patients treated with gemcitabine and carboplatin and to compare the outcome among platinum-resistant and platinum-sensitive patients. A retrospective study using the medical records of patients diagnosed and treated for recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer, fallopian tube carcinoma, or primary peritoneal carcinoma with gemcitabine and carboplatin from 2005 through 2012 at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. The treatment regimen was carboplatin (area under the curve=5) administered on day 1 and gemcitabine 850 mg/m administered on days 1 and 8 in a 21-day cycle. Seventy patients with a median age of 57 years (range38–86) were included in the study. Most patients (94.3%) were initially diagnosed with stage III–IV disease and 44.3% had platinum-sensitive disease. Median progression-free survival in platinum-sensitive patients was 6.3 months [95% confidence interval (CI)4.3–8.3] and 6.3 months (95% CI4.6–7.9) in platinum-resistant patients. Median overall survival was 15.8 months (95% CI13.6–18.1) in the platinum-sensitive patients and 18.4 months (95% CI10.0–27.8) in the platinum-resistant patients. Platinum-sensitive patients had a RR of 43.2% and platinum-resistant patients had a RR of 39.1%. The clinical benefit was 70.5% in platinum-sensitive patients and 65.2% in platinum-resistant patients. Overall treatment had a favorable safety profile. Gemcitabine and carboplatin demonstrate moderate toxicity with similar efficacy in both platinum-sensitive and platinum-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer, suggesting reversal of platinum resistance by gemcitabine.