Platinum-based combination chemotherapy has been proven to be superior to single-agent platinum in the treatment of relapsed ovarian cancer after a treatment-free interval of more than 6 months. A response rate of 41% was previously reported by our group using a combination of epirubicin, cisplatin and 5-FU in patients who relapsed within 12 months, we therefore assessed a similar, but more convenient combination of epirubicin, carboplatin and capecitabine in this phase-I/II trial. In total, 18 patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian carcinoma, who had not received more than two lines of chemotherapy and the treatment-free interval exceeded 6 months were treated with carboplatin AUC5, epirubicin 50 mg m(-2) and capecitabine at several dose levels on continuous 21 day cycles and 14 of 21 day cycles. Patients were assessed for toxicity and by CT and CA-125 for response. The overall response rate was 61.1%, with three complete and eight partial responses. Grade 3/4 haematological toxicity was seen in 10 out of 18 patients and caused dose reductions and treatment delays. The combination of epirubicin, carboplatin and capecitabine showed good activity but caused excessive toxicity. A phase-II trial using carboplatin and capecitabine is underway.