Objectives: To study the prevalence of p53 in serous ovarian carcinoma, and its association with grade of the tumor and response to platinum-based chemotherapy. Methods: It was an analytical study with a quantitative correlational study design. Convenience non-probability sampling method was used to enroll 40 patients. Their tumor grades, p53 status and response to chemotherapy were measured. Then correlation of p53 with both these parameters was identified. Results: Out of the 40 patients enrolled, 34 (85%) had high grade serous carcinoma while 6 (15%) patients had low grade disease. They presented mostly with Stage III i.e 67.5% followed by stage IV i.e 27.5%. Complete response to chemotherapy was seen in 4% of the patients, whereas 50% patients exhibited partial response. For correlation of p53 and grade, chi square test was used. The p value was 0.03 and therefore significant. For chemotherapy response chi square was used and turned out to be 0.05 and was also significant. The regression analysis was run and the “R” coefficient for clinical response was 0.17. The goodness of fit test for this regression model is 0.447. The estimated coefficient of wild type p53 was 1.692 keeping the other category “mutant” as reference category shows that there is positive relation of wild type and worst response of chemotherapy and more chances to “no response/stable” in “wild type” as compared to “mutant” cases. The p-value was significant i.e (≤0.05) for all response elements. Conclusions: p53 positive ovarian serous carcinomas are more prevalent in our patient population and there was a significant relation between p53 positivity and high tumor grade. Also, p53 positive tumors had aggressive disease pattern

Keywords : p53; serous ovarian carcinoma; platinum chemotherapy; response.