Ovarian Cancer

In 1962, President John F. Kennedy challenged Americans to go to the moon within a decade. Apollo 11 accomplished that goal 7 years later. In 2012, inspired by that challenge, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center launched the Moon Shots Program. This ambitious plan aims to convert scientific discoveries into clinical advances quickly to improve survival rates for several of the deadliest cancers including ovarian cancer, which is our focus this month.¹

• One in 72 women will develop ovarian cancer in her lifetime. Ovarian cancer is the 11th most common cancer and the 5th leading cause of death due to cancer in women. It is the number 1 cause of death due to gynecologic cancers.²
• There are 21,980 new ovarian cancer cases diagnosed in the United States annually. More than 15,500 of those diagnosed will have the high-grade serous subtype, which causes nearly 90% of ovarian cancer deaths.³
• Early detection is vital to surviving ovarian cancer, but only 20% of ovarian cancers are found at an early stage.⁴ Diagnosis is difficult because symptoms of ovarian cancer are nonspecific and screening is problematic. Some studies indicate that routine use of transvaginal sonography (TVS) as a screening device is not effective.⁴ However, since 1987, researchers affiliated with the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center have conducted free TVS screenings for ovarian cancer. More than 43,000 participants have received more than 255,000 free TVS screens in this program, which delivers over 1000 screens each month. At least 86 malignancies have been discovered.^5,6
• The total National Cancer Institute research budget for fiscal year 2013 was $4.79 billion, down from an average of $5.8 billion for the years 2010 through 2012. Of the 2013 budget, $100.6 million was spent on ovarian cancer research.⁷

Sources

1. www.mdanderson.org/newsroom/news-releases/2014/year-two-moon-shots-program.html.
2. www.ovariancancer.org.
3. www.cancermoonshots.org/cancer-types/ovarian.
4. www.cancer.org/cancer/ovariancancer/detailedguide/ovarian-cancer-detection.
5. http://ovarianscreening.info/.
6. www.kentucky.com/2013/10/22/2889633_researchers-tout-effectiveness.html?rh=1.
7. www.cancer.gov/researchandfunding/snapshots/ovarian.