Objective: This study focused on whether primary cultures of ovarian cancer (OC) cells established from ascites can be used to evaluate response to chemotherapeutic agents and if curcumin could enhance the efficacy of these agents.
Materials and methods: We established five primary cultures of ascitic cells from OC patients and treated them with curcumin, carboplatin, and paclitaxel singly and in combinations. The percentage of apoptotic cells was determined by flow cytometry.
Results: There was a wide variation in the response of individual primary cultures to treatment with the chemotherapeutic agents. Curcumin by itself was as good as carboplatin or paclitaxel in inducing apoptosis in the primary OC cells. Curcumin was not able to affect the carboplatin mediated cell killing. However, a combination of curcumin and paclitaxel was additive and was equally effective as a combination of carboplatin and paclitaxel. A combination of curcumin carboplatin, and paclitaxel was also found to be additive and, in fact, turned out to be the best combination that gave the highest percentage of apoptosis in vitro.
Conclusion: This study highlights the fact that primary cultures of OC cells can be used to detect response to chemotherapeutic agents and help to individualize the treatment offered to OC patients.