Women\'s Health Issue: Ovarian Cancer

Women's Health Issue: Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is a serious health issue for women. It can cause infertility and death if left untreated, and women should be screened for it, but many of them are not. The ovaries belong to the reproductive system, and when cancer develops and begins changing the cells there are virtually no symptoms at first. This is why most ovarian cancers are generally diagnosed rather late, after they have spread (MedlinePlus, 2009). This makes the cancer one of the most deadly, because only around twenty percent of women are diagnosed in the early stages when the cancer can be easily treatable (MedicineNet, 2009). Once it has spread there is often little that can be done for it, and the best that these women can hope for is medications and surgery to help prolong their lives and ease some of the pain that they are in. If they were diagnosed earlier, many more of them would have a chance to survive.

There are three main problems with ovarian cancer. First, there are no definitive screening tests for it (MedicineNet, 2009). That means that a woman cannot walk into a doctor's office or hospital, have a simple test -- like a mammogram for breast cancer -- and be told whether there is any problem. She also cannot be screened for it through blood work or a pelvic examination with any degree of certainty. If there is a large mass in her abdomen a pelvic exam might find it because the doctor usually presses on the abdomen as well as examines other areas, but a mass that size may indicate that the cancer has already spread (MedicineNet, 2009). This, obviously, is not the time that the cancer should be caught. The key to a good survival rate for these women is to make sure that the cancer is found right away, but until there is a way to do this, ovarian cancer will continue to be a serious health concern for women.

Second, it is usually only noticed once it has spread to other organs. This is true for several reasons. Finding or feeling a mass upon examination is one of those reasons. Another is the fact that, once the cancer spreads, it can affect other organs in such a way that symptoms of a problem finally appear (MedicineNet, 2009). People can become jaundiced, they can have trouble breathing, and they can vomit or otherwise become very sick. Feeling fatigued and tired all the time is also a possibility, as is unexplained weight loss (MedicineNet, 2009). None of these things necessarily mean that a person has cancer, however, or that the cancer that they might have originated in the ovaries. Other health problems can cause these same symptoms, but they should be checked out. If ovarian cancer is found just as it starts to spread it is sometimes possible to treat it effectively, but if it has spread to a large majority of other organs there is virtually no way to stop it and the prognosis for a woman who has this aggressive of a cancer is generally very poor, even with modern medical technology (MedicineNet, 2009).

Third, there are no early stage symptoms agreed-upon by doctors that could indicate the cancer, so most women are completely unaware that there is any problem until it gets much worse. To be fair, there are some symptoms that women can look for. These include bloating, abdominal or pelvic pain, frequent and/or urgent urination, and difficulty eating because one feels very full very quickly (MedicineNet, 2009). However, these were only agreed upon in 2007 and not all doctors feel that these are the best markers of ovarian cancer (MedicineNet, 2009). A lot of women experience at least the first two of these symptoms quite often during their menstrual cycle, and the others are not that uncommon, either. Women cannot be running to the doctor every time they have one small symptom, but a group of symptoms that appears and is persistent is certainly worth checking out, if only to provide peace of mind for a woman who may be worried about whether she has cancer or something much more benign (MedicineNet, 2009).

Like many other cancers, ovarian cancer does seem to have some genetic link. In other words, if a lot of people in a family have had cancer, of any kind, other people in that family are more likely to have it, too. This means that women with strong family histories of cancer will want to get checkups more often, pay more attention to their bodies and any kinds of symptoms that they have, and get any tests that their doctor feels will help to detect cancer at an earlier stage if it is present. There is only so much that one can do about ovarian cancer, since cancer is not yet a disease that medicine has learned how to prevent (MedicineNet, 2009). Cancer is becoming more and more treatable if it is caught early, however, so paying attention to one's body and any unusual and persistent symptoms is something that everyone should be aware of. This is true of ovarian cancer, and of all other types of cancers, as well.