World Ovarian Cancer Day is observed on 8 May, a date established by patient organizations with the aim of raising awareness of this female cancer, which has one of the lowest survival rates, and about which little is still known.
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer among women in Argentina, with approximately 2,300 new cases per year. It is the sixth leading cause of cancer mortality in women. Every year, about 250,000 women in the world are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 140,000 women die from this cause. It affects women in developed and developing countries equally.
In this regard, Director of PRIS (Integrated Health Program) Dr. Elena HurtadoShe said: “Thanks to the many organizations in the fight against cancer, May 8 was established as Ovarian Cancer Day, which aimed to show the disease, because of its characteristic feature of most of the time, is diagnosed late. Symptomatology”.
And he added: “They are usually digestive symptoms that may be overlooked or attributed to another gastrointestinal problem, as it is commonly referred to as indigestion or failure of digestion, constipation, diarrhea, Urinary symptoms, perceived as abdominal pain, occur most of the time, he leads patients to first consult other specialists like gastroenterologists, until they eventually reach a gynaecologist.
“The pathology ranks fifth within cancer among women, but its frequency has been stable both in Argentina and in our province. In Argentina, about 2,300 women suffer from ovarian cancer and in Tucuman there are 87 to 100 patients per year. The importance is That annual control is done, because there is still no specific method to make an early diagnosis. Therefore, the only way we can get a diagnosis is through annual checkups,” he explained.
Following this line, the specialist insisted that women should go to the gynecologist because this cancer is often diagnosed through gynecological ultrasound, sometimes transvaginal, where some changes can be found that allow further studies and make a final diagnosis of ovarian cancer. “A woman has to include annual control from the first moment in her life, in which she starts menstruating and each control will be according to the age that the woman is going through.”
“This cancer occurs more often after the age of 50, but does not mean that there may be exceptions in younger women, but it always occurs in women who have already gone through menopause. Some risk of factors, such as being overweight, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking and a wide estrogen window, which means: women who started menstruating too young and who stopped menstruating too late and have not had children in those intervals. It should be noted that there is also a percentage of women who have a genetic inheritance to present with this type of cancer,” he closed.
