The aim of this study was to evaluate progression-free survival, overall 
survival (OS), response rate (RR), and clinical benefit in recurrent ovarian 
cancer patients treated with gemcitabine and carboplatin and to compare the 
outcome among platinum-resistant and platinum-sensitive patients. A 
retrospective study using the medical records of patients diagnosed and treated 
for recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer, fallopian tube carcinoma, or primary 
peritoneal carcinoma with gemcitabine and carboplatin from 2005 through 2012 at 
the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. The treatment regimen was carboplatin 
(area under the curve=5) administered on day 1 and gemcitabine 850 mg/m 
administered on days 1 and 8 in a 21-day cycle. Seventy patients with a median 
age of 57 years (range: 38-86) were included in the study. Most patients (94.3%) 
were initially diagnosed with stage III-IV disease and 44.3% had 
platinum-sensitive disease. Median progression-free survival in 
platinum-sensitive patients was 6.3 months [95% confidence interval (CI): 
4.3-8.3] and 6.3 months (95% CI: 4.6-7.9) in platinum-resistant patients. Median 
overall survival was 15.8 months (95% CI: 13.6-18.1) in the platinum-sensitive 
patients and 18.4 months (95% CI: 10.0-27.8) in the platinum-resistant patients. 
Platinum-sensitive patients had a RR of 43.2% and platinum-resistant patients 
had a RR of 39.1%. The clinical benefit was 70.5% in platinum-sensitive patients 
and 65.2% in platinum-resistant patients. Overall treatment had a favorable 
safety profile. Gemcitabine and carboplatin demonstrate moderate toxicity with 
similar efficacy in both platinum-sensitive and platinum-resistant epithelial 
ovarian cancer, suggesting reversal of platinum resistance by gemcitabine.