Biomarkers for prediction of chemotherapy response and survival in ovarian cancer patients

According to the 2011 annual cancer registry report in Taiwan, epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) ranked eighth in cancer-related death and 1240 women was diagnosed in 2011 with an incidence 8.3 per 100000 women. Ovarian cancer, especially epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC), has become an extremely important disease in recent years because it has the highest mortality rate of all gynecological malignancies [2,3,21]. with an overall 5-year survival rate of only 20-30% [2]. It became a more and more important disease in recent years [18,27] and the incidence of ovarian cancer also increased in recent year in Taiwan. Initial evaluation for these patients includes a thorough history and physical examination, imaging studies, assessment of tumor markers (CA-125, CA-199, HE4), and/or colonoscopy and upper panendoscopy [23]. The lack of symptoms, difficulties in early diagnosis, insufficient accurate tumor markers, and lack of information about ovarian tumor biology contribute to the poor prognosis in ovarian cancer patients [9]. The prognostic parameters for ovarian carcinomas are tumor stage, histologic subtype, degree of malignancy, and residual tumor after surgical treatment [24,29]. These factors present an incomplete picture of the tumor biology of ovarian cancer and are frequently interrelated [26]. For these reasons, many patients may be delay diagnosed. Thus, the identification of new biologic factors predictive of individual disease course and prognosis would be extremely useful. From the above-mentioned data, ovarian cancer indeed is a disease that should be respected it in Taiwan. We used immunohistochemical staining combined with tissue microarray for evaluation of gene expression;combined with bioformatics with clinicopathological data in search of biomarkers related to chemotherapy response and disease prognosis