• Basic
• Symptoms
• Diagnosis
• Treatments

• What is Ovarian Cancer?

  Ovarian cancer is one of the common malignant tumors in female reproductive organs and it mostly occurs in the most prosperous period of ovarian function. Its incidence rate ranks third which is second only to cervical and uterine cancer, but its mortality rate ranks first among the various female tumors, thus it threats seriously to women's life.

  

  Ovarian Cancer Screening Tests

  1. Women who are unmarried or has late marriage, infertility, or not lactation;

  2. Postmenopausal women over 50 years old;

  3. Women who like eating high fat, high protein, and high calorie diet;

  4. Women with family history of hereditary ovarian cancer, Breast cancer and non-polyposis colorectal cancer;

  5. Women with sterility who use promoting ovulation drug.

  Confusable Diseases with Ovarian Cancer

  1. Non-neoplastic ovarian cysts: such as follicular cyst, corpus luteum cyst, etc, these diseases are generally smaller than 5cm in diameter, with thin wall, and mostly will wear off within 1 to 2 months.

  2. Uterus myoma: ovarian tumors may confuse with cystic degeneration of uterus myoma or subserous uterus myoma. B ultrasound examination can make a clear diagnosis.

  3. Early pregnancy: if uterus enlarges and softens, the history of menelipsis is positive, and HCG value rises, early pregnancy can be confirmed. B ultrasound can see the embryo sac or fetal heart beat.

  4. Chronic urinary retention: mostly a history of dysuria or unfinished urination is positive, and mass locates in the midst of lower abdomen, its edge is not clear. The mass will vanish after undergoing catheterization. B ultrasound examination is also can be used to identify.

  5. Inflammatory mass in annex: the history of chronic pelvic inflammation and infertility are positive. Mass locates in a lower position and is painful when touched as well as adhering to uterus.

  Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou owns an excellent expert team specializing in ovarian cancer, gathers the wisdom of experts to design treatment plan for you in accordance with the symptoms of ovarian cancer, herein your condition will get controlled and treated. If you are diagnosed with ovarian cancer, we are here to provide help and give you individualized medical suggestion. Online consultation or contact us: 02-8-822122.

  We believe that the treatment is not just on the ovarian tumor, also includes nutrition improvement of your body and psychological counseling, etc. Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou provides mental health counseling, physical function conditioning, and rehabilitation therapy as well as information services on ovarian cancer.

• Ovarian cancer grows fast and is easy to spread. Usually it has no obvious early symptom and is often discovered accidentally in gynecological examinations or when it become palpable in the abdomen after growing to certain size and reaches out of the pelvic cavity, or when complications are detected. Ovarian cancer usually has reached its late stage when discovered. Symptoms of ovarian cancer vary according to the size of the cancer, time of occurrence, and whether there are complications or not. Then what are the symptoms of ovarian cancer?

  

  Symptoms of Early Ovarian Cancer

  1. Edema of vulvae and lower limbs: with ovarian cancer enlarging, pelvic vein will be oppressed and that will result in poor blood flow and preventing return flow of lymph, so that edema of vulvae and lower limbs will be caused.

  2. Scanty menstruation or menostasia: the majority of patients with ovarian cancer have no change in their menstruation, but with cancer enlarging, cancer cells will destroy the normal ovarian tissues, leading to ovarian dysfunction, and then scanty menstruation or menostasia will be caused.

  3. Abdominal and low back pain: if adjacent tissues are infiltrated and adhered by ovarian cancer, it can easily cause vague and dull pain of low back and abdomen.

  4. Abdominal distention and loss of appetite: if ovarian tumors oppress and pull surrounding ligaments, in addition to stimulation of ascites, similar symptoms of gastrointestinal disease will be caused.

  5. Sex hormone disorders: when some tumors secrete excess estrogen, sexual precocity, menstrual disorders or postmenopausal vaginal bleeding can be caused; if it is testicular mother cells cancer, male characteristics will appear due to excessive androgens.

  

  Symptoms of Advanced Ovarian Cancer

  1. Sense of abdominal distension: due to rapid growth of tumor, abdominal distention, abdominal lump and ascites can be developed within a short term. If tumor is small, it can be found only by pelvic examination, but with tumor gradually growing beyond the pelvic cavity, abdominal lump can be palpated.

  2. Menstrual disorders and vaginal bleeding: if bilateral ovary cancer is damaged by cancer tissue, menstrual disorders and vaginal bleeding can be caused.

  3. Compression symptoms: when tumor infiltrates surrounding tissues or compresses nerves, abdominal pain, low back pain and sciatica can be caused; if it compresses the pelvic veins, edema of lower limbs can appear; If tumor compresses bladder, frequent urination, dysuria, and urinary retention can be caused; If it compresses rectum, difficult defecation can occur; If it compresses gastrointestinal tract, digestive tract symptom can be caused; If tumor compresses diaphragm , dyspnea and inability to lie down can occur.

  4. Dyscrasia: due to the rapid growth of tumor, malnutrition and physical emaciation can be developed, which results in formation of dyscrasia.

  5. Metastases: pulmonary metastasis can result in dry cough, hemoptysis, pleural effusion; bone metastasis can cause localized severe pain; intestinal metastasis can cause hematochezia, in severe cases, it can result in intestinal obstruction.

  Experts from Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou remind that if you notice any unknown symptoms, please go for a doctor as soon as possible.

• Ovarian cancer is a common cancer in female genital organs, whose incidence is the third only after cervical cancer and uterine cancer. However, its lethality is top in gynecologic tumors, which threatens women greatly. Obviously ovarian cancer diagnosis is very important and can be divided to early diagnosis, level diagnosis and qualitative diagnosis.

  Early Diagnosis

  Because ovarian cancer doesn’t show any typical symptoms and physical signs at its early stage that it is important to know the patient history and have gynecologic examinations. Imaging examinations and tumor marker examination should perform to detect ovarian cancer if any following suspicious conditions occur: long lasting ovarian dysfunction, abnormal symptoms of enteron or urinary tract without obvious cause for long time, increasing ovary of young girl or palpable ovaries after menopause, rapid increase and hardening of ovaries.

  

  Level Diagnosis

  The patients who have palpable lumps in ovarian appendage can fully be detected combined with imaging examination. But some ovarian cancer cases would develop external metastases when the primary tumor is small and form some nodules diffused in pelvic.

  Qualitative Diagnosis

  Though ovarian cancer diagnosis technology is developing, there are easy, feasible and fast basic examinations such as imbibing smear examination of posterior fornix, pucture fluid examination of recto-uterine fossa, cytological examination of ascites. Laparoscopy and histological examination can exactly diagnose ovarian cancer cases from suspected cases. Imaging examination, especially ultrasound scanning of vagina can help a qualitative diagnosis of the edge and internal structure of early malignant ovarian tumors. Endocrine examination is inclined to diagnose gonadal stromal tumor of ovary and partial ovarian cancers of ectopic endocrine syndrome. The serum tumor marker test is highly sensitive to ovarian malignant tumor, due to its poorer specificity, immunologic test cannot be the only base to diagnose the type of ovarian cancer. However, combination of multiple tumor marker tests can improve the reliability of diagnosis.

  Ovarian cancer specialist from Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou reminded that in order to catch up the best time for treatments, the patient should go to hospital once being diagnosed. If you need any medical suggestion, please click online consultation.

• Oncologists from Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou warmly remind ovarian cancer patients that there are many treatments for ovarian cancer but the most important thing is to choose the suitable therapeutic regimen according to individualized condition.

  Let’s introduce the therapy options for ovarian cancer patients.

  
  

  Traditional Treatment for Ovarian Cancer

  1. Surgery

  Generally speaking, surgery is the first choice for treating ovarian cancer; however, surgery usually cannot thoroughly remove small foci inside the body of ovarian cancer patients, thus patients possibly face transferred recurrence of ovarian cancer.

  

  Traditional Cancer Treatment

  2. Chemotherapy

  If surgery is hard to perform, 1-2 times chemotherapy can be firstly given prior to surgery to enhance the success rate of surgery. After surgery, chemotherapy can be given to prevent recurrence; if surgery is not thorough, chemotherapy can be given to ease the condition, even prolong survival period; patient whose tumor cannot be removed by surgery, shall firstly shrink and loosen the tumor by chemotherapy so that create the operation condition secondly. However, chemotherapy usually brings a lot of side effects to patients, such as hair loss, vomiting, bad appetite, etc. Chemotherapy is a double-edged sword, killing cancer cells and damaging the normal cells at the same time. Thus, many ovarian patients refuse taking chemotherapy and choose interventional therapy.

  3. Radiotherapy

  Most of the malignant tumors, including ovarian tumor, are not sensitive to radiotherapy so the radiotherapy for ovarian cancer usually does not bring good therapeutic effect during the treatment. Ovarian cancer experts from Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou suggest patients not to take radiotherapy as the first therapy option.

  Advanced Treatment for Ovarian Cancer in Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou

  

  Interventional Therapy

  1. Interventional Therapy

  Interventional therapy is to inject the drugs directly into the tumor so that it can cut off the tumor blood vessels and the tumor dies our of blood supply. Compared with chemotherapy, interventional therapy directly targets the tumor and will not damage the normal cells with few side effects.

  2. Biological Immunotherapy

  After several years of clinical research and experience feedback, a new special therapy for ovarian cancer has been studied out, that is biological immunotherapy. This treatment method is based on human immunity system. These immune cells play a good role in distinguishing and inhibiting tumor cells, through such method, good therapeutic effect can be well achieved by increasing patients’ immunity. This is the principle for so-called “applying cells of patients themselves to treat their disease”.

  

  Immunotherapy

  3. Combination of TCM & Western Medicine Therapy

  Chinese medicines play an essential role in treating ovarian cancer, which regulate endocrine secretion and promote ventilation and blood circulation. For women, blood is the substance foundation for menstruation. If entrails are functional disorder, blood circulation would be affected and various kinds of gynaecopathia would be easily caused. Combination of western medicines, TCM helps regulate the organ’s function, improve immunity and reduce side effects during the treatment.

If you have any questions, please contact us via online consultation, email or phone call. If you find our website useful, please follow our FaceBook and YouTube, health information will be updated regularly.