Creation and validation of models to predict response to primary treatment in serous ovarian cancer

Nearly a third of patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC) do not respond to initial therapy and have an overall poor prognosis. However, there are no validated tools that accurately predict which patients will not respond. Our objective is to create and validate accurate models of prediction for treatment response in HGSC. This is a retrospective case–control study that integrates comprehensive clinical and genomic data from 88 patients with HGSC from a single institution. Responders were those patients with a progression-free survival of at least 6 months after treatment. Only patients with complete clinical information and frozen specimen at surgery were included. Gene, miRNA, exon, and long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) expression, gene copy number, genomic variation, and fusion-gene determination were extracted from RNA-sequencing data. DNA methylation analysis was performed. Initial selection of informative variables was performed with univariate ANOVA with cross-validation. Significant variables (p < 0.05) were included in multivariate lasso regression prediction models. Initial models included only one variable. Variables were then combined to create complex models. Model performance was measured with area under the curve (AUC). Validation of all models was performed using TCGA HGSC database. By integrating clinical and genomic variables, we achieved prediction performances of over 95% in AUC. Most performances in the validation set did not differ from the training set. Models with DNA methylation or lncRNA underperformed in the validation set. Integrating comprehensive clinical and genomic data from patients with HGSC results in accurate and robust prediction models of treatment response.