While medical professionals use the staging of ovarian cancer to analyze how serious the illness is, how best to treat it and to provide a discussion about survival statistics, Dr. Beth Karlan, Director of the Women's Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center observes, "The staging of cancers is really to help us with a dialogue, and the honesty of our outcome." If you detect any symptoms of ovarian cancer, and a visit to your doctor confirms the diagnosis, then the next step would be discussing the stage of your illness.
- Stage I – Confined to the ovary
- Stage II – Spread to pelvic structures
- Stage III – Spread to abdominal structures
- Stage IV – Spread outside the abdomen or inside the liver or spleen
As a general rule, the lower the stage ovarian cancer, the less the cancer has spread.
Read More Stage one refers to the earliest stage. At this point, it is limited to one or both ovaries, and is considered a confined form of the cancer; it has not spread to distant sites in the body. Stage two is when the cancer has spread from one or both ovaries to other organs in the pelvis, which can include the side walls of the pelvis, one or both fallopian tubes, the back of the uterus and the rectum or sigmoid colon. With stage three, the cancer is in one or both ovaries, and has spread beyond the pelvis area to the upper abdomen, either to the omentum (a fatty apron that stretches over the abdomen), or other surfaces within the abdomen, such as along the diaphragm, the surface of the liver or the spleen, or possibly, nearby lymph nodes. At this stage, it has still not spread to distant sites. Finally, with stage four, the cancer cells have spread beyond the abdominal cavity to other organs: tumors inside your liver (not just on the surface), inside the spleen, in and around the lungs or other organs outside the abdomen and pelvic region, and possibly to the bones. Several factors go into deciding on what kind of treatment is best, depending on the type and stage of ovarian cancer, the age of the woman and whether she is planning to have children in the future. But surgery is usually the first treatment recommended, with
chemotherapy for use after treatment. For all four stages of ovarian cancer, two specific chemotherapy drugs are usually suggested. Chemotherapy is usually injected into a vein with an IV, given orally, or, in some cases, may be administered through a catheter directly into the abdominal cavity. There are currently two chemotherapies currently considered the backbone for the initial treatment of ovarian cancer. "We do know that two medicines together are better than one," says Dr. Karlan.
Usually, a platinum compound (carboplatin), which kills ovarian cancer cells, and a taxane like paclitaxel (a chemical compound originally derived from plants, which interferes with the growth of cancer cells) are the therapies used. These two drugs are usually given as an IV into the vein, every three to four weeks.
Although, as with any chemotherapy, side effects can occur, Dr. Karlan tells us that even during this treatment, most women should be able to go about most of their daily routines, whether it is working or running a carpool, with the caveat that they will most likely feel more fatigue than normal. "I say most, because they are going to be more tired. Nobody's typical activity includes coming to a hospital for chemotherapy," notes Dr. Karlan. After treatment, most women should be able to resume just about all their normal activities.
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Dr. Beth Karlan is a gynecologic oncologist at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California. Read More
