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Twenty-five patients with progressive, cisplatin-resistant epithelial ovarian cancer received 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) 500 mg/m2 days one through three and Mitomycin-C 10 mg/m2 every 28 days in a phase II trial. Myelotoxicity manifested as thrombocytopenia resulted in dose reduction, delay of therapy, or discontinuation of treatment in 24% of patients. Only two patients (8%) demonstrated a partial response to therapy. Neither response was durable. The majority of patients (76%) demonstrated progression of disease following a single course of therapy. As utilized in this trial, the combination of 5-FU and Mitomycin-C is not an active salvage regimen for patients with cisplatin-resistant, progressive epithelial ovarian cancer.

Taxol was administered to 25 patients with progressive ovarian cancer who had failed three or more lines of chemotherapy. A response rate of 27% was noted in 22 evaluable patients (5 partial responders; 1 complete responder). Median duration of response was only eight weeks. The impact of Taxol's use in this disease awaits the result of trials in which it is administered as first line therapy.

Forty-five patients with progressive or recurrent ovarian carcinoma received cisplatin, etoposide, and ifosfamide as salvage chemotherapy. The primary purpose of this trial was to evaluate if etoposide and ifosfamide added to cisplatin was effective second line therapy in the 20 patients with progressive or recurrent ovarian cancer after first line cisplatin-based chemotherapy. The overall response in the 20 patients was 20%, all of which were complete responses. However, responses were seen only in patients who had previously responded to first line cisplatin-based chemotherapy and then developed recurrent cancer, whereas none of the patients whose cancer progressed during first line cisplatin-based chemotherapy responded. The addition of etoposide and ifosfamide to cisplatin as second line therapy does not potentiate cisplatin in patients demonstrating first line cisplatin resistance and most likely does not contribute to the second line responses in those patients who demonstrated first line cisplatin sensitivity. This combination is also ineffective as third, forth, fifth or sixth line salvage chemotherapy with a response rate of only 8%.