NewsAwareness
Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month: Knowing the Signs and the Facts
Each September, Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month encourages people to learn about a cancer often found late. Here is a calm, NCI-based look at what it is and what NCI supports.
A plain-language summary based on public reporting and trusted sources, linked below.
Please note: this page is educational only — it is not medical advice, and it does not speculate about anyone’s health beyond reliable public reporting. For questions about your own health, talk with your healthcare team.
Where the September date comes from
Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month is marked each September. In the United States it also has a formal footing: Proclamation 10796, signed on 30 August 2024, named September 2024 National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. The proclamation notes plainly that "there remains no reliable method for asymptomatic screening and detection" of this cancer.
That single sentence explains most of what follows.
Three diseases, treated as one
NCI groups ovarian epithelial cancer, fallopian tube cancer, and primary peritoneal cancer together. They arise in closely related tissue — the covering of the ovary, the lining of the fallopian tube, and the peritoneum, which is the membrane lining the abdomen. They are staged and treated the same way.
Less common forms exist, including germ cell tumors and low malignant potential tumors, sometimes called borderline tumors. Those behave differently. Our page on ovarian cancer sets out the main types.
Why it is usually found late
The ovaries sit deep in the pelvis. A tumor can grow there for a long time without pressing on anything that hurts.
When symptoms do arrive, they read like ordinary digestive trouble. NCI lists pain, swelling, or a feeling of pressure in the abdomen or pelvis; a sudden or frequent urge to urinate; trouble eating or feeling full quickly; a lump in the pelvic area; and gas, bloating, or constipation.
Every one of those is common and usually harmless. That is the problem.
The screening question was actually tested
People often assume no screening exists because nobody has tried. That is not what happened.
NCI's screening summary describes two large randomized trials. In the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening, women were offered either transvaginal ultrasound alone or a blood test for CA-125 combined with ultrasound. CA-125 is a protein that ovarian cancer cells often shed into the blood. Women had 7 to 11 screening rounds and were followed for a median of 16.3 years.
Neither approach lowered the death rate. The hazard ratio was 0.94 for the combined method and 0.94 for ultrasound alone. Both confidence intervals crossed 1, meaning the result is consistent with no effect at all.
Screening also did harm. NCI reports that 9.6% of screened women had a false-positive result, and 6.2% went on to have surgery because of it. Among all screened women, 1.2% had a surgical complication.
So the advice not to screen average-risk women is a finding, not a gap.
Who carries higher risk
NCI lists ovarian cancer in a first-degree relative, inherited changes in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, Lynch syndrome, endometriosis, postmenopausal hormone therapy, obesity, and tall height. About 20% of ovarian cancers are hereditary.
BRCA1 and BRCA2 are genes that normally repair broken DNA. When one is faulty from birth, damage builds up. Our explainer on BRCA gene changes covers what testing involves and who it is offered to.
Women at inherited risk may be offered surgery to remove the ovaries and tubes before cancer develops. That is a serious decision with its own consequences, and it is made with a care team.
When to get checked
The threshold that matters is persistence, not severity.
NCI's guidance is that if these signs get worse or do not go away on their own, check with a doctor. A practical reading: bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, feeling full quickly, or urinary urgency that is new for you and happening most days for more than two or three weeks deserves an appointment.
Ask specifically about a pelvic exam, a transvaginal ultrasound, and a CA-125 blood test. Those tests are not useful for screening healthy women. They are useful for working up a symptom.
Anyone with a mother, sister, or daughter who had ovarian or breast cancer should raise genetic counseling separately, whether or not they have symptoms.
What treatment involves
Most people have surgery first. The aim is to remove as much tumor as possible, which often means the uterus, both ovaries, and both fallopian tubes, plus sampling of nearby tissue.
Chemotherapy usually follows. It may be given into a vein, or in some cases directly into the abdominal cavity through a thin tube, which NCI calls intraperitoneal chemotherapy.
Targeted therapy has changed the later stages of care. PARP inhibitors — olaparib, rucaparib, and niraparib — block a DNA repair pathway that cancer cells with faulty BRCA genes depend on. NCI describes them as maintenance treatment for certain recurrent ovarian, fallopian tube, or peritoneal cancers.
What the numbers describe
About 21,010 new ovarian cancer diagnoses and 12,450 deaths are projected in the United States for 2026, an American Cancer Society estimate that SEER carries. SEER's own registry records put the median age at diagnosis at 63.
Stage at diagnosis is stark. Only 22% are found while still confined to the ovary. Fifty-four percent are found after spread to distant sites.
Five-year relative survival tracks that split: 91.9% for localized disease, 70.1% for regional, and 31.5% for distant. Across all stages it is 52.0% for women diagnosed from 2016 through 2022.
Those are group averages built from thousands of women diagnosed years ago. They do not describe any one person's situation, and they lag behind current treatment.
What to keep in perspective
An awareness month cannot create a test that works. Nothing about September changes the evidence that screening healthy women does not save lives.
It also does not mean symptoms are reliable warnings. They arrive late in most cases, which is exactly why the stage distribution looks the way it does.
What it can do is shorten the gap between a symptom and an appointment. That gap is the one thing here that is under anyone's control. Our page on cancers with few or no early symptoms covers the same problem across other diseases.
Sources
- NCI PDQ: Ovarian Epithelial, Fallopian Tube, and Primary Peritoneal Cancer Treatment (Patient Version)
- NCI PDQ: Ovarian, Fallopian Tube, and Primary Peritoneal Cancer Screening (Health Professional Version)
- Proclamation 10796 of August 30, 2024 — National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, 2024 (govinfo, 89 FR 72283)
- NCI SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Ovarian Cancer
How this article was prepared
An AI-assisted editorial system helped prepare this page. No named medical reviewer has reviewed it unless one is listed.
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Put the story in context
Prevention, possible warning signs, screening, and diagnosis
This story relates to Ovarian cancer. The information below is general: it does not reveal anything else about a public person’s health, and not every point applies to every cancer. Personal advice depends on age, symptoms, family history, exposures, and medical history.
Prevention and risk reduction
Not every cancer can be prevented. Avoiding tobacco, protecting skin from ultraviolet radiation, limiting alcohol, staying active, and receiving recommended HPV or hepatitis B vaccination can lower the risk of certain cancers. A risk factor is not a prediction or a cause in one individual.
Symptoms and possible early signs
Possible signs vary and are often caused by conditions other than cancer. Changes worth discussing include a new lump, unexplained bleeding or weight loss, a persistent cough, lasting bowel or bladder changes, a changing skin spot, or symptoms that persist or worsen. Some early cancers cause no symptoms.
Screening and early detection
Screening looks for certain cancers before symptoms begin. Recommended tests exist only for some cancers and depend on age and risk. Screening can have benefits and harms; it is not the same as evaluating a new symptom, and there is no single routine scan or blood test that reliably screens for every cancer.
How cancer is diagnosed
Diagnosis may involve a history and exam, imaging, laboratory tests, and often a biopsy. Pathology can identify the cancer type and may test biomarkers that guide treatment. Symptoms, screening results, tumor markers, or online stories alone cannot confirm cancer.
Learn about this story’s cancer topic
A public story may encourage questions, but it should not be used to estimate your risk or choose testing. Contact a healthcare professional about a persistent or concerning change. Seek urgent care for severe or rapidly worsening symptoms.