are dna ploidy and epidermal growth factor receptor prognostic factors for untreated ovarian cancer a prospective study to identify prognostic factors for untreated ovarian cancer dna ploidy proliferative index pi and epidermal growth factor receptor egfr expression were analyzed in a prospective series of 40 patients with ovarian cancer and 7 patients with borderline malignant ovarian tumor followed up for 5 years or more median 77 months the frequency of aneuploid cells was 538 2139 in ovarian cancer and 143 17 in borderline malignancy there was no significant association between dna ploidy and the clinicopathologic findings in which aneuploid ovarian cancer was more common among advanced tumors the sphase fraction and pi value were higher in the patients with aneuploid tumors p 0076 egfr expression was detected in 769 3039 of ovarian cancers and 429 37 of borderline malignant ovarian tumors and the mean egfr level was 58 121 range 0495 and 283 711 range 01894 fmolmg protein respectively there was no correlation between egfr expression and dna ploidy pi and clinicopathologic findings analyzed the 5year survival rate in patients with aneuploid tumors was significantly worse in patients with ovarian cancer p 00165 logrank test no significant relationship was shown between pi egfr expression and 5year survival cox multivariate analysis showed that dna ploidy pi and egfr expression are not associated with the risk of death p 05917 p 09924 and p 06840 respectively although clinical stage shows a significant relationship p 00027 our data showed that dna ploidy is significantly related to the prognosis by univariate analysis but dna ploidy pi and egfr expression were not independent prognostic factors for the untreated ovarian cancer