(8,17). Analysis of blood samples from 30 ovarian cancer patients and an equal number of age-matched normal subjects shows significantly increased concentrations of plasma thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances and conjugated dienes in the patient specimens, indicating increased oxidative stress in ovarian cancer (18). However, the same study also shows low levels of SOD, catalase, vitamin C, and vitamin E in the plasma of the patient blood samples, possibly due to their increased utilization in scavenging lipid peroxides as well as their sequestration by tumor cells (18). This is in contrast with the increased serum Mn-SOD observed in another study (17). Decreased Mn-SOD activity and expression have also been reported in certain colorectal carcinomas and pancreatic cancer cells (19,20). These apparent conflicting observations are likely because of the different assays and various cell types used in these studies. Thus, it is important to clarify this issue by further examining the expression levels of SOD in a large number of primary human cancer tissues in comparison with normal tissues. Tissue microarray analysis provides an effective tool for such analyses. This new technique was used in the present study to compare the expression of Mn-SOD and Cu,Zn-SOD in primary human ovarian cancer tissues, benign ovarian lesions, and normal tissues. Although the biochemical activity of Mn-SOD in catalyzing the conversion of O 2 Ϫ to H 2 O 2 in the mitochondria has been well characterized, the potential role of Mn-SOD in cancer development remains to be defined. Because the Mn-SOD level seems decreased in certain cancer cells and forced expression of Mn-SOD appears to suppress malignant phenotypes in certain experimental models, this molecule has been con-* This study was supported in part by Grants CA85563, CA100428, and CA109041 (to P. H.) from the NCI, National Institutes of Health, and RSG-04-028-1-CCE (to J. L.) from the American Cancer Society. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact. 1 These authors contributed equally to this work.