Women with ovarian cancer are more likely to take medications to treat stomach pain and indigestion.
- Ovarian cancer is the eighth most common cancer in women.
- This cancer causes few or no symptoms, so it is often diagnosed late.
- The diagnosis could be made earlier based on the purchase of medications for digestive disorders.
This is the eighth most common cancer in women. Ovarian cancer causes few or no symptoms. The first signs consist of gynecological disorders (bleeding, abnormal vaginal discharge, breast tenderness) as well as local disturbances related to the tumor mass (urinary leakage, pelvic pain, feeling of heaviness, etc.). These symptoms can also include digestive problems, such as bloating, nausea, loss of appetite or stomach pain.
Ovarian cancer: symptoms that can be “vague in the early stages of the disease”
These symptoms “can be unclear in the early stages of the disease, leading some people to seek treatment from a pharmacy to help them, rather than seeing a GP, because they do not think their condition is serious,” indicated researchers from Imperial College London (UK) In one study, they looked at whether there was a link between a diagnosis of ovarian cancer and a history of purchasing medications to treat pain and indigestion, such as painkillers or antacids.
To conduct their work, the researchers used information from the loyalty cards of 273 women. Of these participants, 153 had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 120 were in good health. The scientists analyzed the patients’ monthly purchases of medications for digestive disorders over a six-year period. They also had to answer a questionnaire on ovarian cancer risk factors, symptoms experienced and the number of visits to the doctor in the year preceding the cancer diagnosis.
Early diagnosis thanks to indigestion drugs?
“Purchases of treatments for digestive disorders increased 8 months before diagnosis. (…) An increase in purchases of drugs for indigestion was detected up to 9 months before diagnosis,” can be read in the results published in the journal JMIR Public Health and SurveillanceLoyalty card data on over-the-counter drug purchases could help detect ovarian cancer earlier, researchers say.
“As we know that early diagnosis of ovarian cancer is essential to improve survival, we hope that this research will help detect symptoms of ovarian cancer earlier and improve treatment options for patients.”explained James Flanagan, lead author of the study.
“Today, in the digital age, we live with a wealth of data at our fingertips. Studies like this are a great example of how we can harness this information to good effect and detect cancer earlier,” concluded David Crosby, head of prevention and early detection research at Cancer Research UK.