Therefore, Gynecologic Oncologists should be involved in the care of gynecologic cancer patients at all stages of their disease. This training enables individual patients to be treated with the form of therapy most likely to provide a positive outcome or cure. The Society s goal is to improve the care of women with gynecologic cancer by encouraging research, disseminating knowledge and increasing awareness in order to improve prevention and treatments, and to cooperate with other organizations interested in women s health care. The SGO also sponsored a Strategic Planning Conference in December 1997 with the NCI and the Public Health Service s Office on Women s Health to produce New Directions in Ovarian Cancer Research. This report outlines priorities for ovarian cancer research over the next five years.
Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of all the gynecologic cancers.
While early detection improves the chances for the successful treatment of cancer of the ovaries, almost 70 percent of women with ovarian cancer are not diagnosed until the disease is advanced in stage. The five year survival rate for these women is only 15 to 20 percent. The SGO is continuing its collaborative work with the NCI on the implementation of the ovarian cancer research agenda produced by the conference. It is the Society s hope that this collaboration will lead to important discoveries in improved prevention, detection, and treatment of ovarian cancer. Because the practice of gynecologic oncology is restricted to female cancers of the reproductive tract, the entire spectrum of diseases treated by gynecologic oncologists is uniquely Sex-Based.