A consensus opinion has emerged, with emphasis on detecting the early symptoms. The trouble is, these symptoms are vague, and early diagnosis may be difficult:

Despite this, in all these years, after performing or referring for thousands of sonograms (and not a few ca125 tests) in what I believe is an optimally aggressive screening approach for ovarian cancer in symptomatic women, I have yet to diagnose a single case of early ovarian cancer. Of the 5 or so cases (it is, after all, not a common cancer), all but one presented to me at stage 3 or more. That early tumor was a borderline cancer, and she would have done well no matter what I had done.

I wish I could say my aggressive management of symptoms has impacted ovarian cancer mortality. It’s certainly reassured a lot of frightened women and found quite a bit of benign disease. But ultimately, I just don’t think it has made a difference in terms of ovarian cancer outcomes.