Measurement of the Folate Receptor in Blood

Measurement of the Folate Receptor in Blood

The folate receptor (FR) is a cell marker that is over expressed on the cell surface of certain cancers, this occurs most frequently in ovarian cancers. Some normal tissues also express the FR, however in these normal tissues the FR is usually located on the tissue surface that is inaccessible to circulating drugs. As such, drugs which target the FR may potentially be used to achieve anti-tumour efficacy whilst reducing toxicity to normal tissues. Therefore the ability to measure FR levels from different cancer types may help to select patients who are most likely to benefit from treatment with FR targeted therapies. One such drug BGC 945 is currently being tested in preclinical study at The Institute of Cancer Research

A method has been developed in the laboratory which has been able to measure FR obtained from cancer cells in culture that has been added into blood. We would like to study if this method can measure FR in plasma and serum obtained from patients with ovarian cancer. We would also like to analyse plasma and serum samples obtained from healthy volunteers to determine if they have any appreciable levels of FR, which can then be compared to the measurements obtained from cancer patients.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients with stage III/IV ovarian cancer
• healthy volunteers who are staff at the ICR and RMH

Exclusion Criteria:

• patients or healthy volunteers who are unable to give informed consent
• pregnancy