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Abstract
Developing maintenance therapies and identifying new prognostic factors are pertinent to the improvement of
the poor prognostic of women diagnosed with ovarian carcinoma (OC). In this thesis, the effects of green tea
on OC have been examined in a systematic review of the literature: Green tea and its active components, the
catechins, decrease the expression of several proteins involved in OC; Green tea intake has been associated
with a decrease in the incidence of OC and, in one epidemiologic study, has been suggested to improve of the
prognosis of women with OC. A phase II study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of a catechin-
enriched tea, the double-brewed green tea (DBGT), as a maintenance treatment in women with advanced
stage serous or endometrioid ovarian cancer (clinicaltrials.gov, NCT00721890). In this clinical trial, DBGT
supplementation does not appear to be a promising intervention. The membrane type 1-matrix
metalloproteinase MMP14 is a potential target of green tea in OC. Tissue microarrays have been used to
evaluate if the immunohistochemical expression of MMP14, as assessed by virtual microscopy and by digital
image analysis, could predict survival and progression in women with OC. Higher levels of MMP14 expression,
as evaluated by both assessment methods, were associated with favourable standard prognostic factors of
OC, and MMP14 expression was inversely associated with progression in women with serous OC (hazard
ratio (HR): 0.48; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.24-0.99). Comparing tumors from women with late recurrence
to tumors from women with early recurrence, a proteolytic profile associated to the prognosis of women with
OC (including genes encoding for MMP9, ADAM10 and HE4) has been identified using a protease-dedicated
oligonucleotide microarray. In a cohort study conducted to confirm the effect of the protein HE4 on the
prognosis of women with OC, high preoperative plasmatic levels of HE4 were associated with standard
prognostic factors of OC aggressiveness and were independent predictors of death (HR: 1.67; 95% CI: 1.08-
2.59). In conclusion, in women with OC, DBGT supplementation does not appear to be a promising
maintenance intervention and the expression levels of MMP14 and HE4 have been associated to progression
and death, respectively.