Hi, I'm sure lots of people have read the article about raising money for the Eve Appeal for research into Ovarian Cancer, and some may have checked the Eve Appeal website http://www.eveappeal.org.uk/RVEd0e5faa0b17442b9974e722feef5cd04,,.aspx

Although it's extremely heartening that the Appeal has a strong focus on improving early detection, it's a shame it did not give more details on how to carry out what is possible these days already.

As you will all know - and the Eve Appeal makes clear - the hideous paradox about cancer is that it is usually curable in early stages, but not in late stage, and that, with dreadful irony, early stage cancer seldom has any discernible or suspicious symptoms. By the time symptoms show - or, worse, are actually taken any notice of by GPs - the cancer is usually at late stage.

For that reason, screening is essential. Although I agree that screening methods for ovarian cancer are not 100% as yet, and there is room for considerable improvement - which the Appeal is trying to achieve, and all, all credit to it - I would all the same say categorically that using the screening methods currently available CAN detect ovarian cancer at early stage - or even before it starts.

Screening is very simple. A blood test will show the CA125 marker to be present or absent, and whilst some people can have the marker, and not have OC, and some have OC and not have the marker, my recollection is that around 70% of OC does show the CA 125 marker.

Your GP should be able to do the test with little trouble, but if they object, or tell you you're being neurotic etc etc, a private GP will charge around Ł85 (that's what I was charged earlier this year).

Screening comes in two types - surface abdominal, and transvaginal. The former is like having a scan to see your baby when you are pregnant. The latter goes inside your vagina. Please have the latter, as it is more accurate and more detailed.

Again, your GP should send you for a NHS scan, but if they won't, mine cost me Ł290. It was carried out by a foremost expert, and showed clearly that I had a cyst on my right ovary that was NOT a functional (ie, harmless egg sac) cyst, but a borderline cyst, with some abnormal cells inside. They were not cancerous, but there is, again as I recollect, a 7% chance they will turn cancerous at some stage. As a result, I shall be having a hysterectomy that will remove my (menopausal) womb, tubes and ovaries. I am not waiting for this cyst to turn cancerous.

Such scans therefore CAN detect cancer at pre-cancer stage and early, Stage I. Perhaps not always, BUT the blood test and scan MASSIVELY improve your chances of early detection of OC, and therefore EVERY WOMAN should do them as a matter of routine, especially from the age of around 40 onwards, when the OC stats start to climb.

As the Eve Appeal makes brutally clear - OC is a deadly killer because it is SO asymptomatic in its early, curable stages:

"Most women who develop this cancer do not have obvious symptoms until the cancer has spread outside the ovary to other organs, such as the bowel. By this time it is very difficult to treat effectively.

"Over 85% of women in the UK suffering from ovarian cancer will die from the disease when it is detected at the most advanced stage.

"About 95% of women will survive when the disease is detected in the early stages."

We only have one life. Don't lose it unnecessarily, because you don't take the precautions that are already available.

ANYONE whose cancer - of any kind - was detected at late stage, when it had become incurable, would give all they possess to roll back time, and be given the chance to take the precautions that are there to detect their cancer much earlier, when it was far more curable - even if their GPs think they are being idiotic.

Shamefully, FAR too many GPs are simply 'cancer-unaware' and don't bother to think you MAY have cancer, or tell you what to look out for, or fob you off with a 'there there, I'm sure it isn't cancer, don't worry your little head about it'. Which is odd, really, since a quarter of the UK population dies of a disease which GP's tell you you haven't got.....

So, please, all you 40-somethings and older out there, get your CA125 blood test done, and get your transvaginal ultrasound scan done. It could save your life.

FIND CANCER BEFORE IT FINDS YOU.
And Live.

All the best, Julie