WHILE there have been "huge improvements" in the prognosis of many cancers, ovarian cancer is getting left behind, a Hunter specialist says.
Every day, gynaecological oncologist Dr Yvette Ius sees patients who are fighting the "under-funded, under-resourced cancer".
Dr Ius said ovarian cancer had a "a much worse prognosis" than many other cancers, and it was killing about three women in Australia every day.
"The biggest thing is that 46 per cent of women will be alive five years after an ovarian cancer diagnosis," Dr Ius said. "That means 44 per cent will have died in the first five years. If you compare that to breast cancer, which gets a lot of media attention and funding and support - they have a 91 per cent survival.
"They are nearly twice as likely to survive the first five years after a diagnosis than ovarian cancer. It is not that we want funding taken away from other cancers, but we want people to recognise there's a disparity, and understand that adding some research dollars to try to improve the prognosis for our ovarian cancer patients would be really fantastic."
Dr Ius, a surgeon at the John Hunter Hospital, said about 70 per cent of ovarian cancers returned.
"At the moment, early diagnosis is the way to improve prognosis," she said.
"But unlike breast cancer, or cervical cancer, there is no screening test for ovarian cancer. About 90 per cent of ovarian cancers would be diagnosed at stage 3. That means it has already spread to other organs."
Dr Ius said ovarian cancer's prognosis had not improved "a great deal" in the past 30 years - and it was "getting left behind".
'It's nowhere near as common as breast cancer, and I think any time it comes to gynaecological cancers, people are less inclined to talk about it," she said. "They might be a bit embarrassed. But they shouldn't be. Ovaries are so important - they allow us to grow up and have hormones and have children.
"But things can go wrong, and we need to be able to talk about them, and the symptoms."
Dr Ius encouraged women to be aware of the symptoms - such as persistent abdominal bloating, abdominal or pelvic pain, early satiety - feeling full after eating a small amount of food - and needing to urinate more often, or more urgently.
"The symptoms can be quite vague," she said. "But if these are new for you, or are severe or continue for more than a few weeks, keep a record of it and go to see your GP and discuss it."
Dr Ius would like to see more government funding or research grants made available for ovarian cancer to help improve its prognosis.
