Print this page 
Banking on Volunteers
Posted 12 June 2009
Photo: Clinical Nurse Nicole Fairweather and research participant Enid Pruysers
PHI researchers are seeking community support, especially from healthy older women, in building up a bank of stored biological samples.
The stored blood and urine will be an important tool in the development and testing of early detection technologies for ovarian cancer.
It is projected that over 1500 women across Australia will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2009. Most women affected are only diagnosed at a late stage with the disease being well advanced and treatment options limited.
PHI researchers are focussed on “biomarker” technologies to detect ovarian cancer as early as possible.
Dr Andrew Stephens, Head of the Ovarian Cancer Biomarkers laboratory and NAB Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation Fellow says that the identification of further ovarian cancer biomarkers will be critical in the development of a community screening program to detect ovarian cancer early.
“We are very hopeful that our intensive search for ovarian cancer biomarkers in blood will lead to fruition” he says. In identifying the potential clinical value of cancer biomarkers the research team must carefully compare and analyse multiple blood and urine samples from ovarian cancer patients and healthy post-menopausal women.
In the last year dozens of women have given up a few minutes of their time for a short appointment, which involves collecting some basic health information and taking a small sample of blood and urine.
The researchers hope that the reference collection of healthy samples will grow to about 400. “Having a larger reference size from healthy women will enable and speed our detailed search and analysis of potential cancer biomarkers” says Andrew.
Are you a healthy postmenopausal woman interested in participating and helping us develop an early detection test for ovarian cancer?
Contact Nicole Fairweather on 03 9594 7910 to learn more.
- Further details of PHI clinical studies and opportunities for research participants.