microRNA alterations associated to clinical response in advanced stage ovarian cancer patients (training set)

In order to investigate miRNA alterations associated to early relapse in ovarian cancer patients, we analyzed miRNA expression profile in a training set of 55 surgical specimens including 30 early relapsing and 25 late relapsing patients. Patients were selected on the basis of residual disease after primary surgery and time to relapse (TTR) after front-line chemotherapy. For training set, a selection of the outliers concerning TTR was made: as early relapsing were defined optimally debulked (OD) patients with a TTR< 12 months and sub-optimally debulked (SOD) patients with TTR< 6 months; late relapsing were defined OD patients with TTR> 36 months and SOD patients with TTR> 12 months. Clinical codes: Histotype: according to International Federation of Gynecological and Obstetrics guidelines Stage: according to International Federation of Gynecological and Obstetrics guidelines Grading: according to WHO guidelines Debulking: NED: not evident disease; mRD: minimal residual disease; GRD: gross residual disease Therapy code: P: Platinum without taxanes; PT: Platinum/paclitaxel End Point: Early: relapse whithin 12 and 6 months from the end of therapy for optimally (NED+ mRD) and sub-optimally (GRD) debulked patients respectively. Late: median time to relapse 48 and 34 months from the end of therapy for optimally and sub-optimally debulked patients respectively. Time to relapse (TTR) code: 0=no relapse; 1=relapse Overall survival (OS) code: 0=alive; 1=dead