Gynecologic Health

Ovarian Cancer: Not So Silent?

What symptoms were associated with ovarian cancer in this study?
There were a wide variety of symptoms, including GI symptoms, back pain, bloating and fatigue. This has been a problem all along: There isn't one classic symptom that clues doctors in to ovarian cancer, so there are many mixed symptoms that women experience prior to being diagnosed. “The thing I think that this study showed was that in addition to having these various symptoms, the frequency and the severity of the symptoms are also important,” Daly says. “And the symptoms don't come and go; they get progressively worse.”

Are these symptoms often dismissed by women and their doctors?
“I think they have been dismissed sometimes because they are symptoms that everybody has from time to time, such as the feeling of bloating or low back pain or crampy abdominal pain,” Daly says. It's hard to know when these symptoms signify something different than the usual aches and pains that all women have.

A woman needs to make sure that if she's concerned about a symptom it is not dismissed by her or her doctor. It is also important to be as clear and descriptive as possible about what exactly she's experiencing. A good doctor-patient partnership can really make the difference.

Are there other common conditions that ovarian cancer symptoms can be confused with?
One of the conclusions of the study was that doctors need to know other medical conditions the patient has in order to put the symptoms in context. So it’s important that a womanly openly discusses other diseases or conditions she has with her doctor. The study also mentioned that women with diabetes and thyroid disease had more symptoms than other women.

What other factors should be considered when interpreting symptoms?
Age is important, and the age when ovarian cancer becomes more frequent is usually post-menopause, in the 50s and 60s. “I think having a family history of ovarian cancer makes us more suspicious when someone has these complaints,” says Daly. “Having one of the two known genes associated with breast cancer increases the potential risk for ovarian cancers significantly, 10- or 20-fold.” So there are definitely certain women who are at a higher risk.

The other thing, too, is if someone's complaining of something that they've had off and on for three or four years, it's less suspicious than if a woman comes in and says, "For the last three weeks, I've been having bloating, and I've never had anything like this before." That should make your doctor a little bit more concerned, because it's brand-new.

<< Previous Page 2 of 3 Next Page >>