Ovarian Cancer - The Facts You Need to Be Aware Of

The leading cause of death from genital malignancies in women is ovarian cancer. It accounts for almost 4% of all cancer deaths in women although not the highest incidence among reproductive tumors. Over time, the mortality rates have increased, this is most likely because of lack of early detection methods. Caucasian women show higher incidence rates of ovarian cancer than African-American women.

The cause of ovarian cancer is not known. The risk factors includes age, women older than 40 years old; Family history, also heredo-familial disease can be a major risk factor; null parity, a woman who has not given birth to an infant capable of survival; history of infertility; history of dysmenorrhea; and the use of ovulation-stimulating medications increase the risk that the p53 which is a tumor suppressor gene to mutate.

Most of these types of cancer are epithelial, although some are adenocarcinomas which are tumors that arise from glandular structures, which mostly are a component of most organs of the body. Ovarian cancer tends to spread and grow silently until manifestations such as pelvic pressure felt on adjacent organs or abdominal distention tends to occur that is when the woman should seek medical care. During which these pressure-related manifestations occur, the malignancy has usually spread to the uterus, ligaments as well as to the fallopian tubes. Also, they tend to spread to the nearby organs and associated structures. The usual routes of metastasis for this cancer are lymphatic tissues, through the blood which is hemetogenous, through the local extension and peritoneal seeding. The cancer may also invade the bowel, liver and other neighboring organs. Aggressive metastasis has occurred when the pelvic blood vessels are already involved.

There are clinical manifestations of ovarian cancer. These are urinary frequency and urgency, pleural effusion, increase in abdominal girth, weight loss accompanied by malnutrition, ascites associated with dyspnea (difficulty breathing), pain caused by the pressure from the growing tumor and also from the effects of bowel obstruction, constipation and most of all general severe pain. As we all know, Pain is subjective. This means that whenever the person says they are experiencing severe pain that is what their experiences are and should be addressed.

The indicators usually do not appear until the malignancy is already established although sometimes not until it has already spread. Sometimes the malignancy is being diagnosed at an earlier stage, although most affected individuals may eventually have terminal cancer due to late diagnosis for the reason that it is asymptomatic.

Before a woman gets too alarmed about possibly having this type of cancer gather the facts and address it in a logical, informed way.Consult your physician and give him or her all of the symptoms and move forward in determining the proper diagnosis.