Treatment of transplanted adriamycin-resistant ovarian cancers in mice by combination of adriamycin and ultrasound exposure

Ovarian cancer models were established in cyclophosphamide immunosuppressed mice by subrenal capsular cell fibrin clot transplantation. SKOV3 cancers were treated by adriamycin alone, or adriamycin combined with ultrasound exposure. SKOV3/ADR cancers were treated with adriamycin, as well as verapamil and insonation were administrated alone or concurrently. The results were: (1) Insonation alone could not suppress growth of tumours. (2) In SKOV3 cancers, ultrasound exposure potentiated the efficiency of adriamycin. (3) In SKOV3/ADR cancers, insonation reversed adriamycin resistance, but verapamil was not effective and no synergism existed between it and ultrasound. These findings revealed that ultrasound exposure enhanced the efficiency of adriamycin to both chemosensitive and chemoresistant ovarian cancers in vivo. Mechanisms were discussed.