SPOTLIGHT: OVATIONS FOR THE CURE OF OVARIAN CANCER
Ovarian Cancer continues to be one of the most insidious and challenging cancers to battle. Known as the 'silent disease', organizations like "Ovations for the Cure" understand the importance of continued research in finding answers to someday gather enough clinical data and produce innovative solutions to eliminate ovarian cancer from attacking our global community.
INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN PATTERSON
We started back in 2007, which at that time, there wasn't much for ovarian cancer. It wasn't talked about- and you didn't tell anybody you had it. It was a secret. My friend had it... her mother had it before her, but she did not know that because they didn't talk about it. So when she was diagnosed, she had a vision of leaving something behind. After years of treatment, she finally ran out of options.
The other thing we did was we created what my founder called the sisterhood for every woman nationwide. We would work with social workers at different hospitals and connect with women that are diagnosed to get a free gift from us. Right now, it's a teal butterfly bracelet in the hopes that they will see another woman wearing this bracelet during their treatment and can open a conversation. What this also does is when they apply for the treatment, they join our email list and we connect them with other women in their area as well.
We also work with women and families to create a lot of smaller and local events. We help them create an event to remember her- and we do that year round. We try to have small community events so that the family members can remember and spread the awareness about this disease. We do videos and we also do a big team fundraising at the Jimmy Fund walk every year to go directly to Ursula Matulonis Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. To date, we've donated over 1.7 million and for a small one person organization, we are pretty darn proud of that. So the focus is always on awareness, education, and research.
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| This feature is published in: www.womenshealthdigest.org |
UNDERDIAGNOSED WOMEN & THE FALSE NEGATIVE
Dr. Cappello passed away on Nov 15, 2018, from secondary myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), a bone marrow cancer that was a complication of her prior aggressive breast cancer treatments. But she ignited a legacy of fighting for improved policies, advancing imaging technologies and continued research to better address this health crisis that puts the est. 40% of the female population (women with dense breasts) at risk of a false negative readings or other dense‐breast related cancers. The disorder or the cause may vary, but sad endings to stories like these remain common in our patient community. We stand at a major point in history when medicine offers the highest advancements in technological innovations and treatment options- if not for HUMAN ERROR, or the mis-management of those entrusted to give professional care. (See reprised feature from 10/2021 @: www.NYCRANEWS.com)
The Latest: Advancement in Early Detection of Ovarian Cancer
According to the Society for Women's Health Research, Over 20,000 women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer this year in the United States and women have a 92% chance of surviving for five years post-diagnosis. However, more than three-fourths of women are not diagnosed until later stages." [1] Abnormal ovaries are often benign simple cysts, however the complex cysts are classifiable with the new ultrasound scoring system as to how suspicious they may be. The same way we detect prostate tumors by routine yearly ultrasound screening in high risk patients, we could save many lives because sometimes the first sign of ovarian cancer is a gland in the neck that pops up, a mass under the arm or jaundice because the liver is filled with metastatic tumor.
In 1980, I gave a talk for the American College of Obstetricians at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where we presented the use of real-time imaging for the instantaneous documentation of the fetal heart beat by intrauterine cardiac sonogram to detect fetal demise instead of waiting 2 weeks to see if the fetus was growing. We asserted a similar use of ultrasound technology to monitor abnormal ovarian cysts as small as two centimeters (2-3 cm is about the size of a normal ovary). Early cancers could not be felt, but are imaged with ultrasound as the technology advanced. With today's high resolution and 3D imaging, (including endo probes with elastography for the uterus and ovaries) recent upgrades offer even better capabilities to conduct regular screening in real time called a noninvasive “virtual biopsy”.
In the 1990's, advancements in imaging allowed us to accurately detect prostate cancer, uterine cancer, and particularly see abnormal ovarian tumors. In addition, there is now an entire classification of ovarian cysts promoted by all the ultrasound and gynecologic societies to discern the fact that not all cysts are suspicious while some will be cancerous. Most of the ovarian cancers have cystic components. In my history as a practitioner, the first possible indicator of ovarian cancer was the swollen belly. Oftentimes, patients would come in after a CT for abdominal distension might show a fluid-filled abdomen, malignant ascitic fluid- and then when they drained the fluid, you might find an ovarian cancer tumor that metastasized to the lymph nodes, the mesentery membrane (the wall around the stomach area) or the liver.
Instead of conducting biopsies on abnormal glands, we now employ the sonogram in areas like the axillary lymph nodes. If there is an abnormal gland with a tumor under ultrasound guidance we insert a tiny biopsy needle and aspirate cells for cytology, which are contemporaneously analyzed microscopically providing timely diagnosis and reduced patient anxiety from waiting and often avoids the risks of a full dissection of the axillary or groin lymph node.
Thanks to modern endo probes that can scan deeper organs, we study micrometastatic nodules throughout the body in superficial areas and in deeper areas like the ovary. The endo probes resolution is 5x greater than the MRI or the CT scanner. It is able to see not only the size and the irregularity in the cancerous wall of a cyst, but it measures the blood flow, which gives you a number of the abnormal tumor vessels in a cancer. Measuring the number of cancerous arteries indicates the severity of an ovarian tumor would be. Similarly, the fewer feeding blood vessels, the less malignant it is likely to be.
With our current 3D screening solutions, we now have a way to find cancers before they metastasized throughout the body. And we have the technology that can be used to study a cyst instead of doing a exploratory laparotomy to take out a suspicious ovary.
2024 CLINICAL PROFILE OF THE DENSE BREAST PARADIGM - for the Obstetrics & Gynecology Society Written by: Roberta Kline, MD / Published by ICRS Medical Press Ltd.
Breast cancer affects the lives of hundreds of thousands of women every year and is a leading cause of death. While we have made great progress in advancing earlier diagnosis and more individualized treatments, we still need to improve our approach to achieve our ultimate goal - prevention. This requires a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms and the multitude of factors that contribute to the development of breast cancer.
Dr. Roberta Kline, recognized speaker and publishing crusader for women's health brings you a comprehensive review and a deep-dive analysis of the current research findings about breast density and its major risk factors for breast cancer. Her reports uncover current imaging practices and clinical protocols updated in great support of breast density detection and the means of addressing this growing condition that affects over 45% of the female population. "Knowing a woman has greater breast density is a critical first step, but it doesn’t end there... we need to go further by understanding the causes of breast density, and how they relate to breast cancer-- we now have another avenue to proactively intervene to reduce risk or even prevent breast cancer in the first place." This textbook is a champion in targeting the Dense Breast Paradigm as a blueprint and a clear course study for all clinical professionals who are dedicated to women's early detection and prevention programs. (More information)
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