Standard therapy for the treatment of ovarian cancer is radical surgery followed by radiation and/or chemotherapy using cisplatin and paclitaxel. Unfortunately, some patients relapse after this first line chemotherapy and some patients become platinum-refractory. Therefore, we analyzed two different ovarian carcinoma cell lines for their sensitivity for γ-irradiation and treatment with cisplatin, irinotecan, paclitaxel and gemcitabine. We found that both cell lines were rather resistant against γ-irradiation and treatment with cisplatin and irinotecan whereas paclitaxel and gemcitabine resulted in a considerable reduction of the viability of the cancer cells. Both paclitaxel and gemcitabine treatment resulted in the induction of apoptosis. This sensitivity profile might be due to a particular subset of p53, which reacted with monoclonal antibodies DO-1 and PAb1801 but not with PAb1620 and PAb421. Gemcitabine and paclitaxel are highly efficient in the induction of apoptosis in ovarian cancer cells, which express a particular subset of the growth suppressor protein p53. Thus, a sensitivity profile for each ovarian carcinoma seems to be highly recommended before starting treatment.

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