Breast cancer, sure. That's become an acceptable, and common, topic of conversation among female friends. But as Kolker explains, ovarian cancer has such a high mortality rate that not many women survive long enough or are healthy enough to become constant, vigorous advocates on behalf of the disease. Roughly 25,000 American women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, and only half of them will survive longer than five years. The symptoms are vague and easily confused with other diseases, and it's not on the list of conditions that are checked out when women present with these symptoms.
Frontline physicians are notoriously uninformed on ovarian cancer.
Right now, ovarian cancer receives one-tenth of the research dollars that go to breast cancer. Part of the upswing may be explained by population increases, but the rest is still a mystery to researchers. Don't Cry for Me On Saturday, Goss' friends and some 400 others plan to march in Washington to raise awareness among women about ovarian cancer. If physicians can't recognize the signs of the disease, organizers say, then women have to be more alert. Unlike mammograms for breast cancer and Pap smears for cervical cancer, there is no specific screening test currently available for ovarian tumors.