Signs of ovarian cancer are often confused

There is a common confusion among doctors and women about ovarian cancer, a charity has just announced.

Symptoms of ovarian cancer include persistent abdominal or pelvic pain, an increased belly size and persistent abdominal distention, difficulty eating or fasting. About 6,800 women are diagnosed with this disease every year. However, only 30% survived 5 years after the diagnosis.

Target Ovarian Cancer surveyed over 400 doctors and found that 80% of them misunderstood that early women of ovarian cancer showed no signs.

Ovarian cancer is green.(Photo: BBC)

When asked to point out the potential symptoms of the disease, 51% of doctors correctly identified " waist size increase " as the most important symptom, but less than 2% of them knew that there were symptoms " difficult to eat "or" fast ".

And nearly two-thirds of the doctors were unaware that if their father's family had a history of ovarian cancer, the risk of a woman's disease would increase.

Early signs of the disease are often confused with irritable bowel syndrome. Patients are often sent to the gastrointestinal tract, and by the time the doctor realizes it is not the cause, the cancer has progressed.

The survey found that 69% of obstetricians do not know that ovarian cancer often causes persistent, sudden and persistent irritable bowel symptoms.

A spokesman for the Obstetrics and Gynecology Association said " very difficult " to diagnose the disease at an early stage. Of the 1,000 women who held Target Ovarian Cancer interview, only 4% said they could " confidently identify " the symptoms of the disease.

Two-thirds of these women think the disease is not age-related (while the older they are, the greater the chance of getting it). 80% do not know that women without children are at higher risk.

However, experts also said that if diagnosed early, 90% of patients can survive. At present, three-quarters of infected people are diagnosed when the disease has spread. On average, from the first symptoms appear to about one year.