Ovarian Cancer
With a vision to offers comprehensive and state of the art Ovarian Cancer care, Dr. Vaibhav Choudahry provides the support & guidance patients and their families need with one-on-one consultations.
Sign & Symptoms:
In most cases, ovarian cancer isn’t diagnosed until it’s progressed to an advanced stage. In fact, according to the American Cancer Society, only about 20 percent of cases are diagnosed at an early stage. Typically, this is because ovarian cancer symptoms either aren’t noticeable in the early stages of the disease or they mimic common stomach and digestive issues that are often mistaken for minor ailments.
Women are more likely to experience symptoms once the disease has spread beyond the ovaries, typically to the lymph nodes outside the abdomen, the skin, the liver, the spleen, the fluid around the lungs, the intestines or the brain.
- Bloating
- Pelvic or abdominal pain
- Early satiety (feeling full quickly) or difficulty eating
- A need to urinate frequently or urgently
- Back pain
- Extreme tiredness
- Weight loss
- Pain during sex
- Acid reflux
- Constipation or upset stomach
- Unusual belly swelling
- Menstrual changes
Treatments Recommended :
When you’ve been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, your doctor will work with you to decide what treatment is right for you. Often, you’ll have several of the treatments at the same time.
Surgery
This is usually the first step. It’s done to take out a piece of the mass to see if it’s cancer. Doctors call this a biopsy. Surgery helps “stage” the cancer to see how far it has spread. Once cancer is confirmed, your surgeon will take out as much of the tumor as possible.
How much surgery you have depends on how far the cancer has spread. In some cases, the ovaries, uterus, cervix, or fallopian tubes may need to be removed. Other tissue typically removed includes lymph nodes, the omentum (fatty apron covering the intestines) and all visible cancer. If your surgery is in the very early stages or you want to have children, your doctor may not remove all your reproductive organs.
Radiation therapy
These high-energy X-rays can help kill any cancer cells that are left over in the pelvic area. It can be used if cancer has come back after treatment or to help control symptoms like pain.
Chemotherapy
You may need chemo to get rid of any cancer cells that are still in your body after surgery. You usually receive these powerful medications through an IV. But sometimes they work better for ovarian cancer if they’re injected into your abdomen. This lets the medicine come into direct contact with the part of your body where the cancer was and is most likely to spread.