Abstract: Ovarian cancer is the most lethal in female reproductive carcinomas, seriously threatening the lives and health of female. Cytoreductive surgery and platinum-based cytotoxic chemotherapy are standard therapies for the treatment of ovarian cancer. The majority of ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed at advanced stages due to insidious onset, while advanced ovarian cancer patients tend to become refractory to current chemotherapeutic agents. Therefore, a critical contributor to the poor survival rate is the development of chemoresistance. There is particularly significant implication to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of chemoresistance for exploring efficient targeted therapies and developing novel therapeutic agents that can improve chemotherapy sensitivity and reverse chemoresistance. The development of chemoresistance for ovarian cancer is the results of polygenic and multifactorial interactions at different levels, the significant mechanisms involve in anti-apoptosis, pro-survival, drug efflux, detoxification, DNA repair and so on. The molecular mechanisms of ovarian cancer resistance for cisplatin and paclitaxel are uncertain, now this report aims to review the possible mechanisms.

Key words: Ovarian neoplasms, Carcinoma, Drug resistance, neoplasm, Cisplatin, Paclitaxel