Non-thermal atmospheric pressure plasma has been widely studied in recent years in many fields, including cancer treatment. However, its efficiency for inducing apoptosis sometimes varies depending on the cell species and experimental conditions. The aim of this study was to elucidate what causes these differences in responses to plasma treatment. Using four ovarian cancer cell lines, the cell density had a markedly negative impact on the proliferation inhibition rate (PIR) and it was more obvious in OVCAR-3 and NOS2 cells. Furthermore, TOV21G and ES-2 cells were drastically sensitive to plasma‑activated medium (PAM) compared with the other two cell lines. We demonstrated that the proportion of reactive oxygen species and cell number had a marked impact on the effect of PAM against ovarian cancer cells. Additionally it was suggested that the morphological features of cells were also closely related to the sensitivity of cancer cells to the plasma treatment.