Essay on "Women's Health Ovary Cancer"

Essay 3 pages (1127 words) Sources: 3 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Women's Health Issue: Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is a serious health issue for women. It can cause infertility and death if left untreated, and women should be screened for it, but many of them are not. The ovaries belong to the reproductive system, and when cancer develops and begins changing the cells there are virtually no symptoms at first. This is why most ovarian cancers are generally diagnosed rather late, after they have spread (MedlinePlus, 2009). This makes the cancer one of the most deadly, because only around twenty percent of women are diagnosed in the early stages when the cancer can be easily treatable (MedicineNet, 2009). Once it has spread there is often little that can be done for it, and the best that these women can hope for is medications and surgery to help prolong their lives and ease some of the pain that they are in. If they were diagnosed earlier, many more of them would have a chance to survive.

There are three main problems with ovarian cancer. First, there are no definitive screening tests for it (MedicineNet, 2009). That means that a woman cannot walk into a doctor's office or hospital, have a simple test -- like a mammogram for breast cancer -- and be told whether there is any problem. She also cannot be screened for it through blood work or a pelvic examination with any degree of certainty. If there is a large mass in her abdomen a pelvic exam might find it because the doctor usually presses on the abdomen as well as examines other areas, but a mass that size may indicate that the cancer has already spread (MedicineNet, 2009). This, obviously, is not the time that the cancer should be caught. The key to a good survival rate for these women is to make sure that the cancer is found right away, but until there is a way to do this, ovarian cancer will continue to be a serious health concern for women.

Second, it is usually only noticed once it has spread to other organs. This is true for several reasons. Finding or feeling a mass upon examination is one of those reasons. Another is the fact that, once the cancer spreads, it can affect other organs in such a way that symptoms of a problem finally appear (MedicineNet, 2009). People can become jaundiced, they can have trouble breathing, and they can vomit or otherwise become very sick. Feeling fatigued and tired all the time is also a possibility, as is unexplained weight loss (MedicineNet, 2009). None of these things necessarily mean that a person has cancer, however, or that the cancer that they might have originated in the ovaries. Other health problems can cause these same symptoms, but they should be checked out. If ovarian cancer is found just as it starts to spread it is sometimes possible to treat it effectively, but if it has spread to a large majority of other organs there is virtually no way to stop it and the prognosis for a woman who has this aggressive of a cancer is generally very poor, even with modern medical technology (MedicineNet, 2009).

Third, there are no early stage symptoms agreed-upon by doctors that could indicate the cancer, so most women are completely unaware that there is any problem until it gets much worse. To be fair, there… READ MORE

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