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Ultrasound Detects Ovarian Cancer
Reported July 15, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) – One of the great dangers of ovarian cancer is
the absence of symptoms, making early diagnosis and treatment difficult.
Researchers at the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center--Markey
Cancer Center reported that informative symptoms are absent in 80 percent of
ovarian malignancies. They conducted a study that compared symptoms analysis
to trans-vaginal ultrasound screening in predicting ovarian cancer.
For their study, the researchers selected 272 women participating in annual
trans-vaginal screening from among 31,748 women who were enrolled in a free
screening project at the university. When they compared symptom results to
ultrasound and surgical pathology findings, they found ultrasound screening
performed nearly four times better than symptoms analysis for detecting
ovarian malignancies.
While symptoms analysis performed significantly better for distinguishing
benign tumors, combining symptom analysis with trans-vaginal screening
actually resulted in poorer identification of malignancy, even as it
improved the ability to distinguish benign tumors to almost 98 percent.
Edward J. Plavik, Ph.D., lead author of the study, told Ivanhoe that while
“ignoring symptoms is not an option, trans-vaginal ultrasound screening is
much more effective in the early detection and treatment of the vast
majority of ovarian cancer cases.”
SOURCE: Cancer, July 13, 2009 |
