Until about a decade ago, ovarian cancer was known as the "silent killer" because it was thought that it didn't cause any symptoms until it was too advanced to cure. Not true. Women had been reporting early symptoms—they were just being ignored. ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
In 1942, ovarian cancer was described as having a “symptomless onset and symptomless progress.” It was a “creeping death which defies early discovery.”
Yet as far back as the 1930s, some doctors pointed out that their ovarian cancer patients had had early symptoms are argued that they should be considered “of diagnostic importance.”
But the silent killer myth was so entrenched that it was taught as a fact in the textbooks. Consequently, a patient complaining of early symptoms was often "considered a middle-aged crock who goes to too many cocktail parties and eats too many hors d’oeuvres," as one doc put it.
In the '80s and '90s, ovarian cancer survivors began talking to each other in online patient groups. And they realized they'd often had similar experiences: they'd had early symptoms that were dismissed or misdiagnosed.
In fact, even AFTER being diagnosed, their doctors often insisted that their earlier symptoms couldn't possibly have been from ovarian cancer because it was the "silent killer." Patient advocates began insisting that ovarian cancer was actually "the disease that whispers."
Finally, at a 1998 conference, after a Harvard physician repeated the silent killer line, the ovarian cancer survivors in the audience erupted in protest. They convinced a young gynecologic oncologist who was also in the audience to help them do some research to debunk the myth.
In 2000, their study was published in Cancer. It concluded that "the majority of women with ovarian carcinoma are symptomatic and frequently have delays in diagnosis.” Many were told they had IBS, "stress," depression, or just that “nothing was wrong." ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11066047
In 2007, a national consensus statement declared that 4 symptoms (bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly, & urinary symptoms) could indicate early ovarian cancer.
If treated early (before the cancer has spread outside the ovary) 92% of patients will survive 5 years. But only 15% of cases are detected at this stage. Once it has spread beyond the pelvis, that 5-year survival figure drops below 30%. It is one of the deadliest cancers.
As @ocrfa says on its website: "For years, women have known that ovarian cancer was not the silent killer it was said to be. Over the past decade, science has confirmed what women have long known: ovarian cancer has symptoms."
ocrfa.org/patients/about…
ocrfa.org/patients/about…
And that is the sad and symbolic tale of how it took a century for women’s voices to finally overturn an entrenched medical myth of a "silent" disease. The end.
