(October 25, 2018) Through a series of surveys, interviews, and literature reviews the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition produced a report that detailed their findings and recommendations. Their study spanned the world, 44 countries, and collected responses from 1531 women. Of those women, all had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer on or after January 2013, and about one third of them were diagnosed with epithelial serous ovarian cancer.
The report is broken down into four main areas of focus: awareness, diagnosis, family history, and specialist treatments. The Expert Advisory Panel for the study acknowledged that the participants tended to be younger, from developed countries, and had an above average socioeconomic status but they were able to learn a great deal from the data. For example, before their own diagnosis, over two thirds of participants knew very little or nothing about ovarian cancer. “The panel were shocked by the lack of knowledge of the disease worldwide,” states the report, which led to the conclusion that, “raising awareness of the disease and key symptoms is essential to reducing unacceptable delays in diagnosis…”
You can read the report here.
