Wnt5a immunoreactivity may be a useful prognostic indicator in patients with ovarian cancer. These results clarified for the first time the possibility that Wnt5a plays an important role in regulating chemosensitivity to anticancer drugs in ovarian cancer cells.

Cisplatin resistance remains one of the major obstacles when treating epithelial ovarian cancer. Because oxaliplatin and nedaplatin are effective against cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer in clinical trials and signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is associated with cisplatin resistance, we investigated whether overcoming cisplatin resistance by oxaliplatin and nedaplatin was associated with the STAT3 pathway in ovarian cancer. Alamar blue, clonogenic, and wound healing assays, and Western blot analysis were used to compare the effects of platinum drugs in SKOV-3 cells. At an equitoxic dose, oxaliplatin and nedaplatin exhibited similar inhibitory effects on colony-forming ability and greater inhibition on cell motility than cisplatin in ovarian cancer. Early in the time course of drug administration, cisplatin increased the expression of pSTAT3 (Tyr705), STAT3α, VEGF, survivin, and Bcl-XL, while oxaliplatin and nedaplatin exhibited the opposite effects, and upregulated pSTAT3 (Ser727) and STAT3β. The STAT3 pathway responded early to platinum drugs associated with cisplatin resistance in epithelial ovarian cancer and provided a rationale for new therapeutic strategies to reverse cisplatin resistance.

The impact of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting on the quality of life of ovarian cancer patients is well known. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of acupuncture plus vitamin B6 PC6 points injection with acupuncture or vitamin B6 alone in controlling emesis of 142 patients undergoing a highly emetogenic chemotherapy regimen between March 1, 2006, and June 30, 2008. The patients were divided into 3 groups randomly and were given different antiemesis treatments accordingly. All patients received the same concurrent antiemetic pharmacotherapy and high-dose chemotherapy. We compared the total number of emesis episodes and the proportion of emesis-free days among the 3 groups during the study period. The acupuncture plus vitamin B6 PC6 points injection group had significantly fewer emesis episodes and a greater proportion of emesis-free days than the acupuncture group or the vitamin B6 alone group. We conclude that acupuncture plus vitamin B6 PC6 point injection is a quite useful method against emesis in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

No abstract