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A few days ago, I met a girl in some place and honestly I felt shocked when she said “this is a fake hair, my head is bold now because of my illness.” I felt so curious and asked many questions. The fact is she suffers from ovarian cancer. Each year, about 7000 women in the UK are diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Well girls, I think you better know what ovarion cancer is. Just check it out..

Some factors are known to affect a woman’s chance of developing ovarian cancer:

Women who take the contraceptive pill are less likely to develop this type of cancer.

Stimulation of the ovary by the drugs used during infertility treatment can slightly increase the risk of developing ovarian cancer.

Using hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can slightly increase the risk.

A small number of ovarian cancers are caused by an inherited faulty gene in the family. If any of the following are present in your family it is possible that there may be an inherited faulty gene:

ovarian cancer in two close relatives (mother, sister or daughters), or

one close relative with ovarian cancer and one close relative with breast cancer diagnosed when they were under the age of 50, or

ovarian cancer in one close relative and breast cancer in two family members diagnosed when they were under the age of 60, or

three relatives with colon (bowel) cancer, one diagnosed under the age of 50, and one relative with ovarian cancer.

If two or more of your close relatives have had ovarian cancer you may want to consider having testing (screening) for ovarian cancer. However, it is not yet known how effective screening is at detecting ovarian cancer.

The symptoms of ovarian cancer can be very vague, particularly when the disease is in its early stages. Many women with early stage cancer of the ovary don’t report any symptoms at all. Early symptoms can include: pain in the lower abdomen or side, and bloated (full feeling in the abdomen). Later stage disease can cause symptoms from the tumor growing in the pelvis. This can cause: irregular periods, lower tummy (abdominal) pain, back pain, passing urine more often than usual, constipation, pain during sex, and swollen abdomen. Advanced ovarian cancer can cause even more symptoms if the cancer has spread into the abdomen or elsewhere in the body. The symptoms are: loss of appetite, feeling or being sick, constipation, tiredness, shortness of breath, and noticeable swelling of the abdomen.

Many of these symptoms are vague and can be difficult to spot. They are all more likely to be caused by much more common conditions than ovarian cancer. If you do have any of these symptoms, do go to your doctor and get a check up. But remember that most women with symptoms like these will not have cancer.

Your doctor can describe your treatment choices and the expected results. Most women have surgery and chemotherapy. Rarely, radiation therapy is used.

Cancer treatment can affect cancer cells in the pelvis, in the abdomen, or throughout the body:

Local therapy: Surgery and radiation therapy are local therapies. They remove or destroy ovarian cancer in the pelvis. When ovarian cancer has spread to other parts of the body, local therapy may be used to control the disease in those specific areas.

Intraperitoneal chemotherapy: Chemotherapy can be given directly into the abdomen and pelvis through a thin tube. The drugs destroy or control cancer in the abdomen and pelvis.

Systemic chemotherapy: When chemotherapy is taken by mouth or injected into a vein, the drugs enter the bloodstream and destroy or control cancer throughout the body.

These treatments may change your normal activities. You and your doctor can work together to develop a treatment plan that meets your medical and personal needs. Because cancer treatments often damage healthy cells and tissues, side effects are common. Side effects depend mainly on the type and extent of the treatment. Side effects may not be the same for each woman, and they may change from one treatment session to the next. Before treatment starts, your health care team will explain possible side effects and suggest ways to help you manage them.

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