There is widespread confusion among women and doctors about the signs of ovarian cancer, said a UK charity behind a study being published today, Monday 29 June, at the House of Commons.
The Target Ovarian Cancer Pathfinder study surveyed 400 UK general practitioners (GPs) and over 1,000 women, including 132 with ovarian cancer, and found 80 per cent of GPs were wrongly of the view that women have no symptoms in the early stages of ovarian cancer.
The charity believes that ovarian cancer has been “over-looked and underfunded” and carried out the study to find out where more money should be targeted in order to improve the survival and quality of life of women with ovarian cancer.
The survey found that nearly 75 per cent of GPs did not know about the ovarian cancer symptoms guidelines that the Department of Health published in February this year.
The symptoms of ovarian cancer include persistent pain in the pelvis or abdomen, difficulty eating and feeling full quickly, feeling bloated all the time and increased abdominal size, but when asked to pick out potential symptoms, only 51 per cent of the GPs surveyed correctly pointed out increased abdominal size as the most important, while fewer than 2 per cent pointed to “feeling full” or “difficulty eating”.
The study found that 61 per cent of UK GPs were also not aware that a strong history of ovarian cancer on a woman’s father’s side of of the family increases her risk of developing the disease.
Professor Steve Field, a spokesman for the Royal College of GPs told the BBC that it was “extraordinarily difficult” to diagnose ovarian cancer early.
Among the women they surveyed, the charity found that only 4 per cent were confident they would be able to identify a symptom of ovarian cancer.
The study also found that 44 per cent of the women with ovarian cancer had to wait over 6 months to receive a correct diagnosis of the disease.
Nearly two thirds of the women with ovarian cancer also told the survey that their doctor did not take their concerns and symptoms seriously, and one third of them only got a referral to a specialist after three to five visits to their GP.
Women who go to their doctor with early signs of ovarian cancer are often sent for bowel tests to rule out IBS (irritable bowel syndrome), by which time the cancer, if they have it, has moved to an advanced stage.
The Pathfinder study also found that over two thirds of the GPs surveyed did not realize that symptoms of IBS can be caused by ovarian cancer.
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer among women in the UK, occuring in around 1 in 130 women every week and is responsible for more deaths among women than all the other gynaecological cancers put together, according to figures from Cancer Research UK.
More than 4,300 women died from ovarian cancer in the UK in 2007, which is about 6 per cent of all women who died from cancer that year.
Women who have been through the menopause are more likely to get ovarian cancer (more than 80 per cent of cases are in women over 50).
Target Ovarian Cancer says that only 30 per cent of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer are alive 5 years later, and this figure has not changed for over 30 years. They compare this to breast cancer whose 5 year survival figure has gone from 50 to 80 per cent over the same period.
They said if women are diagnosed early their chances of surviving more than 5 years is around 90 per cent.
Chief executive of Target Ovarian Cancer, Annwen Jones told the BBC that:
“Change is long overdue and ovarian cancer needs to become a priority.”
Source: Target Ovarian Cancer, Cancer Research UK, BBC.
Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD