Are there other common conditions that ovarian cancer symptoms can be confused with?
One of the conclusions of the study was that doctors need to know other medical conditions the patient has in order to put the symptoms in context. So it’s important that a womanly openly discusses other diseases or conditions she has with her doctor. The study also mentioned that women with diabetes and thyroid disease had more symptoms than other women.
What other factors should be considered when interpreting symptoms?
Age is important, and the age when ovarian cancer becomes more frequent is usually post-menopause, in the 50s and 60s. “I think having a family history of ovarian cancer makes us more suspicious when someone has these complaints,” says Daly. “Having one of the two known genes associated with breast cancer increases the potential risk for ovarian cancers significantly, 10- or 20-fold.” So there are definitely certain women who are at a higher risk.
The other thing, too, is if someone's complaining of something that they've had off and on for three or four years, it's less suspicious than if a woman comes in and says, "For the last three weeks, I've been having bloating, and I've never had anything like this before." That should make your doctor a little bit more concerned, because it's brand-new.
