Researchers at the UW and elsewhere have found that some symptoms may provide clues in diagnosing ovarian cancer in its early stages. The findings appear in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest types of cancer for women, partly because it is most often diagnosed in its later stages. But a group of researchers has found that 80 percent to 90 percent of women with early-stage ovarian cancer reported symptoms for several months before being diagnosed. The most common symptoms they reported were bloating, increased abdominal size, fatigue, urinary urgency, abdominal pain, and pelvic pain.
Though many of the symptoms they reported are common among healthy women as well, women with ovarian cancer were more likely than healthy women to suffer the symptoms. Women who developed cancer also had a greater number of symptoms, experienced them more frequently, and had a recent onset of the symptoms.
Women with tumors typically experienced symptoms 20 to 30 times per month and had significantly more symptoms of higher severity and more recent onset than women with benign masses or the control group participants. The combination of bloating, increased abdominal size, and urinary symptoms was found in 43 percent of those with cancer but in only 8 percent of those reporting to primary care clinics. The researchers hope the results will make both patients and physicians more cognizant of symptoms, as well as lead to improved communication.
Barbara Goff, professor of obstetrics and gynecology, was lead author of the study. Lynn Mandel in the Department of Medical Education and Biomedical Informatics and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology was second author of the article.
Ovarian cancer questionnaire: http://depts.washington.edu/ovarian/questionnaire.html
June 11, 2004