Salvage Therapy of Gemcitabine Plus Endostar SignificantlyImproves Progression-free Survival (PFS) with PlatinumresistantRecurrent Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

Anti-angiogenic agents have played crucial roles in the treatment of ovarian cancer in recent years, butpotential benefits of endostatin have been largely unexplored. The present retrospective study evaluated itsefficacy and toxicity with two cohorts of patients with platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer. One cohortreceived gemcitabine plus endostar (rh-endostatin), and the second cohort received gemcitabine regimen alone,with totals of 31 and 27 patients, respectively. The main endpoints were disease control rate (DCR), PFS, overallsurvival (OS) and safety. There were statistically significant differences in DCR (70.9% vs. 40.7%; P = 0.02) andPFS (6.3 months vs. 3.2 months, P = 0.001) between the two cohorts. Though the endostar cohort also improvedmedian OS by 2.1 months, there was no statistically significant difference compared with gemcitabine alonecohort in this case (12.5 months vs. 10.4 months, P = 0.201). Treatment was well tolerated for most patients, andtoxicity of endostar was negligible. Gemcitabine plus endostar significantly improved the prognosis in patientswith platinum-resistant recurrent ovarian cancer, especially in those with malignant effusion. The endostarcontainingregimen is recommended in this setting.