Ovarian cancer is sometimes called "the cancer that whispers" because it so often overlooked, or hard to detect.
- Ovarian cancer can be hard to diagnose just from symptoms. A workup by your doctor may be needed, including a CT scan
- Surgery and chemotherapy are both equally important for ovarian cancer treatment
- The decision about which comes first, surgery or chemo, is made on an individual basis
In general, cancer begins when a cell develops errors, or mutations, in its DNA. The mutations tell the cell to grow and multiply quickly, creating a mass (tumor) of abnormal cells. The abnormal cells may invade nearby tissues and break off from an initial tumor to spread elsewhere in the body.
Read More- Abdominal bloating or swelling
- Quickly feeling full when eating
- Weight loss
- Discomfort in the pelvis area
- Changes in bowel habits, such as constipation
- A frequent need to urinate
In many cases, doctors won’t know right away whether or not you have an ovarian cancer. There may be a suspicion of ovarian cancer based on your symptoms, and that "may lead to a workup by [your] doctor [including] a CT scan, which allows pretty detailed images of the abdomen and pelvis. "If [we] see a mass in the ovary or more than one mass, that may lead to the decision to do a biopsy or to proceed to surgery at that point."
Surgery and Chemotherapy: Partners in Treating Ovarian Cancer
"Surgery and chemotherapy are both very, very important components of ovarian cancer care," Dr. Fader says. But the decision whether to treat with surgery first or with chemotherapy first is quite complex, and "really must be tailored on an individual, case-by-case basis.
"For the most part, when a surgeon or a GYN oncologist thinks that he or she can do surgery successfullywhich means removing all of the grossly visible disease at the time of surgery in the safest way possible without causing too much morbidity or harm to a womanthen surgery is preferred, followed by chemotherapy."
The surgery to remove all, or as much of the tumor as possible, is called debulking. The goal of debulking surgery is to leave behind no visible cancer, or no tumors larger than 1 cm (less than 1/2 an inch). Patients whose tumors have been “optimally debulked” have a better prognosis than those left with larger tumors after surgery.
If the cancer is very extensive, and doctors are not confident they can successfully remove all or most all of it, they may decide to do chemotherapy first to shrink the tumor down. "Or if a woman has [underlying] medical issues that may preclude her safely going to the operating room, like heart problems or a blood clot in the lung that sometimes can come along with a new ovarian cancer diagnosis, then we usually would start with chemotherapy and postpone the surgery until a safer time" where there could be fewer complications, Dr. Fader says.
If treatment begins with chemotherapy, doctors generally give about three to four cycles of chemo prior to surgery, and then, similarly, another three to four cycles of the same chemotherapy after surgery has been completed.
If surgery comes first, patients typically will receive six cycles of their chemotherapy medications following their surgery.
You Will Get Through This
When all is said and done it usually takes about six months to get through chemotherapy and surgery for ovarian cancer treatment. "I think the biggest part of our jobs," one oncologist told SurvivorNet, "whether it be from cancer diagnosis to counseling patients, is to reassure them that they will get through it and that they will be okay."
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