Genomic Predictors of Platinum Resistance and Survival in High-Grade Serous Ovarian Carcinoma: Insights from an Explorative Targeted Next-Generation Sequencing Analysis.

Background: High-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HG-SOC) remains the most lethal gynecological malignancy, largely due to intrinsic or acquired resistance to platinum-based chemotherapy. Although large-scale sequencing studies have delineated the genomic landscape of HG-SOC, clinically actionable biomarkers predictive of platinum response and outcome are still lacking. This study aimed to identify genomic alterations associated with platinum sensitivity, resistance, or refractoriness, and to assess their prognostic relevance. Methods: Tumor DNA from 24 HG-SOC patients with optimal cytoreductive resection, classified as platinum-sensitive (n = 9), platinum-resistant (n = 8), or platinum-refractory (n = 7) underwent targeted next-generation sequencing of 409 cancer-associated genes. Somatic variants were filtered and classified for oncogenicity using established criteria incorporating predicted functional impact, REVEL scores, and population allele frequencies. Associations between mutational profiles, platinum response, and overall survival (OS) were evaluated using Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression analyses. Key findings were validated in the TCGA ovarian serous carcinoma (TCGA-OV) dataset using survival analyses. Results: A total of 1367 protein-altering somatic variants across 301 genes were identified. While TP53 mutations were ubiquitous, platinum-resistant and platinum-refractory tumors showed enrichment of pathogenic alterations affecting DNA repair, transcriptional regulation, epigenetic modification, and oncogenic signaling, including FANCA, ATF1, MAF, NCOA2, PIK3CA, and TET1. Mutations in these genes were associated with reduced overall survival in exploratory analyses (median 2.5-9 months vs. 27.5-45 months). Multivariate analysis identified FANCA and ATF1 as potential independent predictors in exploratory modeling. In the TCGA-OV cohort, patients harboring pathogenic variants in a multi-gene panel derived from this study (excluding BRCA1/2) exhibited significantly worse survival compared with both BRCA1/2-mutated cases and the overall cohort. Conclusions: This exploratory study identifies a set of genomic alterations converging on transcriptional and epigenetic regulation, DNA repair, and oncogenic signaling that are associated with platinum resistance and adverse prognosis in HG-SOC. Independent validation in TCGA supports the potential clinical relevance of this mutational signature. These findings warrant further validation in larger prospective cohorts and functional studies to clarify their role as biomarkers of aggressive disease and therapeutic vulnerability.