Introduction/Background Expression of sex hormonal receptors (SHR) had been reported to influence survival outcomes in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer. In present study, we attempted to investigate the association and mechanism between SHR expression and chemosensitivity in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC).

Methodology We reviewed 71 patients with EOC who underwent surgery followed by adjuvant chemotherapy and analyzed sex hormone receptors (SHR) immunohistochemical (IHC) expression of tissue samples obtained from these patients. The disease-free survival (DFS), overall survival (OS), and percentage of chemosensitivity were compared between weak and strong SHR IHC expression. The effects of cisplatin administration on cell proliferation in ovarian cancer OC3-VGH cells with different SHR expression were investigated.

Results Patients with strong androgen (AR) and progesterone receptors (PR) IHC expression had better 5-year DFS, OS, and chemosensitivity. In cell model data, overexpression of AR and PR OC3-VGH cells caused higher sensitivity to cisplatin treatment. OV3-VGH cisplatin resistant clone expressed lower level of AR and PR than wild-type. Overexpression of AR OC3-VGH cells showed higher DNA damage signals after cisplatin treatment.

Conclusion Our data indicated that strong AR and PR expression were good prognostic factors via the mechanism of better cisplatin sensitivity. Novel therapeutics against AR and PR might be promising for treatment of EOC patients.

Disclosure Nothing to disclose.