Apr 10, 2008
At New Canaan Library: Ovarian cancer seminar April 17
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“Prove to me I don’t have ovarian cancer.”
That’s what one specialist advises all women experiencing the disease’s nonspecific symptoms to demand of their doctors, and of themselves.
“The problem is,” said Dr. Carmel Cohen, who will speak about ovarian cancer at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 17, at the New Canaan Library, “is that they know their bodies better than anyone else,” — even better than their doctor.
“Every rotund woman in the United States who has Chinese food on Sunday night is going to have a little dyspepsia,” he said.
But, said Dr. Cohen, a woman proactively communicating the difference between a bout of indigestion and the newly chronic, persistent discomfort from which she’s suffering could just save her own life.
Once called “the silent killer,” ovarian cancer — the eighth most prevalent cancer in women, but the fifth-most deadly — is now believed to whisper such warning signs, and new research aims to illuminate methods of early detection and prevention.
Dr. Cohen will be joined by Carolyn Runowicz, M.D., as he addresses such themes next Thursday in “What You Should Know about Ovarian Cancer Now.”
The talk is co-sponsored by the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, of which former New Canaan resident Elizabeth Howard Moorhead recently became chief executive officer. Having lost her husband, Tom Moorhead, one-time Town Council chairman and deputy undersecretary of the Department of Labor until his death five years ago, to prostate cancer, Ms. Howard Moorhead hopes to increase New Canaan’s awareness of cancer in general, specifically ovarian cancer.
“Just really to understand,” she said of what she hopes the average woman will glean from the talk. “First of all, to be educated about the disease, and two, that you’ll find when you say ‘ovarian cancer’ somebody knows somebody who went so that you’ll get a little insight into where the research is today.”
Ovarian cancer affects one in 70 women over the course of a lifetime. Its symptoms, including gastrointestinal discomfort, bloating, increased urination and an unexplained change in bowel habits, all lasting more than two weeks, can be vague and lead to initial misdiagnosis.
In a 2007 survey conducted by University of Washington oncologist Barbara Goff, 36 percent of ovarian cancer patients said they had received an initial misdiagnosis; twelve percent were told that they were fine.
Dr. Goff told The New York Times that such delays can mean life or death, as tumors can grow and spread quickly to other organs in the abdomen.
Of 150 million women at risk for ovarian cancer in the United States, the American Cancer Society estimates that 21,650 will develop it this year. Over 15,000 of those women — more than 75 percent — will die.
The risk of developing ovarian cancer increases with age, with the highest incidence seen in women more than 50 years old. A family history of the related cancers of the breast, endometrium, colon and ovary also increases one’s risk of the developing the disease, as does a mutation of the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes, for which a woman can be tested.
Infertility and low parity also increase a woman’s risk.
“I really wanted to bring this information to New Canaan,” said Ms. Howard Moorhead.
There are many ways in which Ms. Howard Moorhead might have done that; she chose to recruit the creme-de-la-creme of ovarian cancer research to speak to her old hometown.
Dr. Runowicz, director of the University of Connecticut’s Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center and former president of the American Cancer Society, will give a general overview of ovarian cancer — its prevalence, symptoms and risk factors — in what she described as “cabaret style.”
“I’m going to talk to you for 30 minutes,” she said, “and then you talk to me.”
Indeed, Dr. Runowicz has a friendly, candid way of communicating with the public; she has written several books on cancer aimed toward lay audiences and even shared her own triumph over breast cancer in 1995’s “To Be Alive: A Woman’s Guide to a Full Life After Cancer.”
That experience, she said, has made her an even greater advocate for women’s health and what she called “the empowered patient.”
Women in the Fairfield County area in particular can become empowered in the fight against cancer, she said, pointing out UConn, Yale and Columbia University medical centers as leading institutions in the field of gynecological oncology. Women who believe they may be at risk for ovarian cancer can seek genetic counseling, through which a women’s familial risk of developing the disease can be determined. Depending on those determinations, said Dr. Runowicz, a proper course of action can be taken.
“My advice to these women,” she said, “is that knowledge is power.”
“Pregnancy,” for example, “protects you.”
For a young woman, Drs. Runowicz and Cohen said that taking the birth control pill for five years decreases one’s risk of ovarian cancer by 50 percent. For older women who have never gotten pregnant, Dr. Runowicz said she may recommend a tubal ligation or oophorectomy and hormone replacement therapy.
Dr. Cohen, professor of clinical gynecology and obstetrics at Columbia, will conclude the evening with a discussion of current research into ovarian cancer.
Most of the research, he said, lay in the field of proteomics, the study of protein structure and function.
“Proteomics is the field of repressed tumor antigens and the rearrangement of genes of a chromosome,” said Dr. Cohen. “There is a huge amount of conversation between different proteins in the cell in an ongoing fashion.”
The balance between messages for cells to duplicate and others to die allow us to stay healthy, as we are, said Dr. Cohen, who hopes that research will someday give way to computer programs that can monitor such intricate communications.
In the meantime, Ms. Howard Moorhead reiterated, knowledge is power.
Reservations can be made by calling 594-5003, or e-mailing clahey@newcanaanlibrary.org.
More information on ovarian cancer can be found through the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund’s Web site, ocrf.org. Founded in 1994, the fund was run by Harper’s Bazaar’s Liz Tilberis as she battled ovarian cancer, and has raised over $20 million for research since 1998.
Donations can be made at ocrf.org.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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