Ovarian cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women, affecting more than 6,000 women in the UK each year. A number of chemotherapeutic agents for the treatment of ovarian cancer are available:

• e.g. paclitaxel, caelyx and topotecan
• Chemotherapy is carried out in 3-weekly cycles, with up to 6 cycles performed

At present at least two cycles of chemotherapy must be administered before it is clear whether the patient is responding to treatment.

• Metabolomic biomarkers may help manage the condition by:
• Predicting the effectiveness of a drug treatment and assessing drug resistance
• Predicting the patients response (e.g. side effects or adverse reactions to treatment)
• This would allow problems to be identified at an early stage and alternative treatment strategies to be employed
• This would benefit both the patient and the health service as it would limit the use of ineffective drug treatments
• Furthermore, the identification of biomarkers for Ovarian cancer could also offer a tool for screening the general population for the disease

The primary questions for the Ovarian cancer study will be:

• Can biomarkers for the diagnosis and classification of ovarian cancer be identified?
• Can these biomarkers be used to predict/detect an adverse response to treatment at an early stage?
• Can the response of the tumour to drugs be predicted?

Recruitment of patients into this study is currently being carried out at Christie Hospital.