Ovarian health is a common concern for women. Ovarian cysts and cancer are prevalent in women, even those younger than 50 years old. The screening process for this disease is not as advanced as medical professionals hope it will be, but is progressing slowly. The developing technologies are identifying the disease in earlier stages, yet are still not preventing enough deaths to be considered successful.
Why Screening is Necessary
Ovarian cancer, if not caught early, may be detrimental to healthy ovary functions. It makes pregnancy difficult and in some cases warps the ovaries, leading to abnormal fetus development or miscarriage. In many cases ectopic pregnancies are linked to cancers.
Screening, if successful, will help you diagnose whether you do have the cancer and help your doctors treat you.
About The Screening
Screening is conducted using trans vaginal ultrasound or ovarian palpitation. Both of these methods are minimally invasive. Screening is only deemed a success if it prevents death or detects ovarian cancer in its early stages. The screening tests currently available in the field of medicine have a tendency to produce high false positives in some women. The screening is only preliminary to diagnosis, and means very little until diagnostic tests are run.
Screening Risk Factors
Often screenings will not be suggested without one or two major risk factors present in a patient. It is common for ovarian cancer to strike those who have no risk factors, other than hereditary factors. Menopausal women are at the highest risk. The use of fertility drugs is a significant risk, especially for women in their 30s. Also bearing children later in life can leave one vulnerable to ovarian cancer.
How Sceening affects Treatment
The screening process helps doctors identify the stage of the cancer. Surgery is the most common form of treatment. In some cases surgery in addition to other treatments, like chemotherapy, will be needed. Most screenings will lead to diagnostic tests, which show lesions or large shadows of where the cancer is.
If the cancer is removable, a laparotomy is performed and the surgeon will identify the cancer and begin removal or clean up. In some cases a hysterectomy is performed.
Shortcomings of Screening
Ovarian cancer is rarely diagnosed in the early stages of the disease, because the symptoms don't tend to show up until the cancer has advanced.
A screening conducted via ultrasound can sometimes show bumps or shadows that may lead one to think they have cancer, but there is a 50 percent chance that an ovarian cancer screening will give a false positive. Doctors often overlook the readings on screenings because they believe another illness is at fault.
Screening by ultrasounds helps identify lumps that may be advanced stages of cancers. However, this practice can also lead to needless surgery, with no cancers present.
The Screening Process isn't a Diagnosis
Being suggested for a screening test does not mean you have cancer. The screenings are given when there are no symptoms present. Sometimes these screenings can be part of a check up to make sure that everything is working as it should. If you have an unclear or abnormal screening your doctor may suggest a few diagnostic tests. These will be the tests that determine whether you may have ovarian cancer present.
Tags: diagnostic tests, have cancer, ovarian cancer, some cases, early stages