Peer Reviewed
Women's health

Ovarian cancer: where are we now?

Alex J Crandon
Abstract
As there are no proven screening tests for ovarian cancer and initial symptoms are nonspecific, diagnosis requires a high index of suspicion. Women with unexplained suggestive symptoms should be assessed with measurement of cancer antigen 125 (CA-125), a pelvic ultrasound examination and calculation of the risk of malignancy index.
Key Points

    In Australia, ovarian cancer is the ninth most common cancer among women and the sixth most common cause of cancer death; it has the worst incidence to mortality ratio of all women’s cancers. Every year, about 1300 Australian women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, one every seven hours, and 800 women die of this disease, one every 12 hours. These poor outcomes stem from the lack of any effective screening test and the fact that the initial symptoms are so nonspecific. Hence, most women are diagnosed in the advanced stages of the disease, with inherently poor survival outcomes.

    Picture credit: © Molly Borman Biomedical Illustrations, Inc.

Get full access
Subscribe for full access to all articles
Buy this article

Single article purchases are temporarily unavailable due to site maintenance.

If you would like to purchase an article during this time, please email us at [email protected] with the article details and we'll assist you directly. We'll also let you know when online purchasing is available again.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Already a subscriber?