Ovarian Cancer: November 2006 Archives

Women with ovarian cancer are being recruited for a world wide drug trial, to boost their chances of survival when chemotherapy has failed.

Nearly 15-hundred Australians this year will be diagnosed with the disease, described as the 'silent killer'.

Phenoxodiol has proved in clinical trials that it is capable of slowing cancer growth by interfering with the mechanisms that allow ovarian cancer cells to stay alive.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women in the sunnier regions of the world have a much lower risk of ovarian cancer than those who dwell in colder climates, a new study has found.

The findings, say researchers, suggest that sun exposure -- and, more precisely, vitamin D production in the body -- help prevent this cancer.

The study, which appears in the December issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is the latest to tie latitude to cancer risk. Others have found that rates of breast cancer and colon cancer, for example, are higher among people living in higher latitudes, where annual sun exposure is limited.

"Ovarian cancer is insidious. It has no real symptoms," says Dr. Henry Sprance, a gynecologic oncologist at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune.

Nor is there a reliable test for ovarian cancer, he says.

"CA-125 (a blood test) is not a screening test for ovarian cancer. There's a lot of bad information on the Internet about that," he says. "We're looking at other proteins in blood serum levels that may give us information, but that's all experimental now."

Symptoms that point to the cancer are vague, he says.

Younger women with ovarian cancer have better survival rates than older patients, even if they have surgery to conserve their fertility, scientists say.

A new study shows that 59% of women diagnosed between the ages of 30 and 60 were still alive five years later, compared with only 35% of older women with the illness.

Although the improved survival of young women could be due in part to an earlier diagnosis and a lower grade of tumor, the researchers believe there may be other underlying factors. The study was published online ahead of print in the British Journal of Cancer.

source - Times Wire reports 

The risk of developing ovarian cancer is 60 percent lower among women living in areas of the world with high ultraviolet B radiation exposure than those who live in areas with less UVB, concludes a study encompassing 175 countries.

“The main reason for this advantage is that women living in sunny areas have higher circulating (vitamin D2) levels that protect them from ovarian cancer,” said lead researcher Dr. Cedric Garland, a professor of family and preventive medicine at the University of California in San Diego.

Exposure to UVB from sunlight allows skin to photosynthesize vitamin D, which enters the bloodstream and circulates throughout the body.