Treatment Is Found to Stave Off Ovarian Cancer - New York Times

The disease is so deadly because it has hardly any symptoms and so is often advanced by the time it is diagnosed. It usually kills by spreading through the abdomen and attacking the intestines, kidneys and other organs. Bloating, weight gain, bowel problems and other vague abdominal symptoms may occur early on, but often they are mistakenly blamed on other ailments, especially in older women. There is no reliable means of early detection.

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Dr. Armstrong said that extensive and meticulous surgery to remove the cancer is absolutely essential if either the abdominal treatment or standard chemotherapy is to succeed. Such surgery, known as "debulking," is more important for this disease than for other types of cancer, because studies have shown it has more of impact on survival. It may require removing parts of the intestine, spleen and other organs. Ideally, the operation should leave behind no tumors bigger than a centimeter in diameter, or 0.39 inches. The drugs work best when they have fewer cancer cells to kill, and when the tumor masses are small enough for the medicine to penetrate.

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