7,000 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year and sadly 4,000 women will die of the disease. In fact ovarian cancer has often be described as the silent killer because the symptoms like persistent bloating, feeling full very easily and needing to see more frequently are often vague and easily dismissed meaning the cancer has often spread by the time it is diagnosed.
Survival rates for breast and cervical cancer are much better and that is partly due due to effective screening programmes meaning we are more likely to pick these diagnoses early and like all cancers, the earlier they are detected the better the prognosis.
In the past we have relied on a single blood test looking for a protein called CA125 and ultrasound scans to detect ovarian cancer and these have not been sensitive enough to warrant rolling out a national screening programme.
Researchers have been working on a more personalised test looking for changes in CA125 levels which could give us a simple screening test for ovarian cancer.
Exciting news