bcl2 as a predictor of chemosensitivity and prognosis in primary epithelial ovarian cancer this retrospective study of ovarian cancer aimed to elucidate whether expression of apoptosisrelated proteins bcl2 p53 or mdm2 is associated with resistance to chemotherapy especially cisplatin cddp based chemotherapy expression of bcl2 p53 and mdm2 was assessed by immunohistochemical staining of tumour tissues collected at initial surgery prior to treatment with cddpbased chemotherapy among 66 patients with advanced ovarian cancer with measurable tumour following surgery and evaluable for response to chemotherapy 42 45 and 56 were positive for bcl2 p53 and mdm2 respectively significantly fewer tumours of patients who had a complete response to chemotherapy cr showed positivity for bcl2 220 than for p53 620 and mdm2 820 p 0001 there was an inverse correlation between bcl2 staining and initial response to chemotherapy especially in serous and endometrial adenocarcinomas in patients with stage iiiiv serous or endometrioid adenocarcinomas significantly poorer survival was seen for those with bcl2 positive tumours than those with negative bcl2 staining p 00064 p53 and mdm2 were not correlated with initial response to chemotherapy multivariate analysis revealed that bcl2 residual tumour size and histology were significant independent prognostic factors these results suggest that bcl2 can be a possible predictor of response to chemotherapy and prognosis in patients with advanced ovarian carcinoma