Ovarian Cancer: December 2006 Archives

Ovarian cancer is often considered a "silent killer" with no readily identifiable symptoms, but new research challenges this view in the hopes of finding more of the deadly malignancies early.

Because there is no effective screening test to identify early-stage ovarian cancer, roughly three out of four patients are diagnosed with late-stage disease, when the chance for a cure is greatly diminished.

Many patients are misdiagnosed before their cancer is found, with vague symptoms such as pelvic pain and abdominal bloating attributed to other causes.

In their latest study, researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine identified the six symptoms most closely associated with ovarian cancer by comparing the clinical histories of women with the disease to those of high-risk women without cancer.

Doctors have made a significant breakthrough in the treatment of ovarian cancer by discovering a way to reverse the resistance to drugs that denies thousands of women patients each year a chance of survival.

The disease is the fourth most common cancer in women in the UK - after breast, bowel and lung - but is also one of the hardest to treat. There are around 6,900 new cases each year, but 70 per cent of patients cannot be cured because they develop resistance to the chemotherapy which targets the malignant cells.