Common Early-Warning Symptoms of Ovarian Cancer Identified in CDC/Thomson Health...( ANN ARBOR Mich. Oct. 8 /- In a st...),Health

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In a study published in the Journal of Women's Health, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Thomson Healthcare (NYSE: TOC; TSK: TOC) found a distinct pattern of medical signs and symptoms that occurred prior to the detection of ovarian cancer.

According to the study, the conditions patients experienced before an ovarian cancer diagnosis included abdominal pain, urinary tract conditions, menopausal disorders, female genital symptoms, and gastrointestinal symptoms. These symptoms were most pronounced in the 30-90 days prior to diagnosis.

To make this determination, researchers analyzed medical claims from 920 patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer and tracked the symptoms those patients experienced prior to diagnosis. These results were compared with claims data for 2,760 women without ovarian cancer matched on age, geographic region, Medicare eligibility, and health plan type.

Five conditions were identified as being possibly related to ovarian cancer because they were reported significantly more frequently by women diagnosed with the cancer than they were in the comparison group. While all symptoms were reported among women with and without ovarian cancer, the rate of these symptoms was higher, and continued to increase, beginning 90 days prior to diagnosis. Abdominal pain was most frequently linked to a subsequent ovarian cancer diagnosis, with 83 percent of women in the ovarian cancer group recording abdominal pain within 30 days of diagnosis in contrast to fewer than two percent in the comparison group.

Other symptoms more frequently recorded for the ovarian cancer group included female genital symptoms, which w
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