Ovarian Cancer Charities Work Together For Awareness Month

Main Category: Ovarian Cancer
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology
Article Date: 11 Jan 2011 - 2:00 PDT


Ovarian cancer charities are working together for the first time during Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month (March 2011) to build awareness of signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer.

Ovarian cancer is the fourth commonest cause of cancer death amongst UK women with nearly 4,500 deaths per year yet four in five women with ovarian cancer are diagnosed after the disease has spread from the ovary and survival rates for ovarian cancer have barely improved for 30 years. Despite these alarming statistics awareness of the signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer is low amongst both women and GPs.

Say Annwen Jones of Target Ovarian Cancer and Gemma Byrne of The Eve Appeal "There's a number of charities working in the field and we need to ensure that where we are investing charity funds in raising awareness of signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer that we're doing it in a cost effective way and making sure we are all giving the same information about signs and symptoms. So centralising information through one website makes absolute sense.

"Agreement on the signs and symptoms of ovarian cancer was hard won and it's important that we use the final outputs from the Department of Health consistently and uniformly. Otherwise we run the risk of confusing women and GPs, amongst whom awareness of the signs and symptoms of the disease remains woefully low."

Susan Taylor, a woman with ovarian cancer says, "It's good to see charities working together rather than separately. It gives you confidence that the joined up message is the right one. When you have ovarian cancer yourself you need everyone to be working together and to be headed in the same direction."

Lord Tim Clement Jones, whose wife Vicky died from ovarian cancer, and is vice chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Ovarian Cancer, said, " Since the death of my wife, Vicky, from ovarian cancer, I have been passionate about bringing ovarian cancer up the political, charity and public agenda.

"She would, like I am, have been enormously proud to see Target Ovarian Cancer and The Eve Appeal working together on this most important issue, symptoms awareness."

The charities working together are Target Ovarian Cancer and The Eve Appeal and the results of their collaboration can be found here.

Source:
The Eve Appeal

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