Ovarian Cancer: A Case Study

Throughout life, many individuals experience difficulties due to growing up in everyday life. While going in depth of the human life, it is discovered that there are many diseases and disorders that affect humans’ everyday functions. A very popular disease that has traumatically affected the human body is cancer. Cancer is a disease that spreads throughout your body in many ways. The purpose of cancer is to attach to a blood cell in your body and cause a plague within itself, causing the body to initially shut down and die. This disease contains many forms and have many causes to it. However its main goal is to destroy the human body.

“Cancer is a term used for diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues. Cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems (NCI, 2013).” Cancer is of many diseases. It originates from the organ in the body and/or from the part of the body that is affected, for example breast cancer. Breast cancer is mainly common among women, except for skin cancers. “Breast cancer occurs when cells in the breast divide and grow without their normal control (Komen, 2014).” The

I decided to do my paper on Ovarian Cancer because it is a disease that runs in my family history. My great aunt died of ovarian cancer when she was 73 years old. My two second cousins were diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 42 and 58. They were diagnosed at the stages 2 and 4 and have survived. This paper will discuss what ovarian cancer is, how it is detected, who it affects and how it could be treated.

As a busy mother of two, working a full-time job as a primary schoolteacher, Paula Cann had plenty of reasons to ignore the subtle changes that were happening inside her body.

Skin cancer can be very deadly because we are in constant sunlight until we go to bed at night. There are many forms of skin cancer, but the main cause of them all are because of ultraviolet light. There are three forms of skin cancer Melanoma, Basal Cell Skin Cancer and lastly Squamous Cell Cancer. The most serious of them all is Melanoma, which is where the cancer begins at the bottom layer of the epidermis. Many people that have a dark skin complexion don’t get melanoma, but it is possible and it’s both men and women. “Fair-skinned” people on the other hand, are the ones that you usually find Melanoma on. On men it is usually found in noticeable areas that are seen every day like the head, neck, and shoulders. In women on the other hand

In 2012, approximately seventy thousand people were diagnosed with melanoma, forty thousand were men and thirty thousand were women. Around ten thousand people died during that year, twice as many males than females. Furthermore, squamous and basal cell cancers are related and were the reason for more than two thousands deaths as well as affecting more than seventy five percent of the population diagnosed with the disease. Public data and reports showed that incidence as well as death rates were divided by race/ethnicity. Scientifically, research has shown that minority dark skinned populations (blacks, hispanics, AI, etc) are less affected by UV radiations as they have more melanin in their skin which is a pigment that gives human skin, hair and eyes their color basically. Anyway, along the past decade, numbers have shown that all over the U.S, whites are more diagnosed and have a higher mortality rate than all races/ethnicities combined. Those are just genetic facts that have to be taken into

BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 are gene mutations long associated with high risk for breast and ovarian cancer. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found new evidence that it might also predict treatment resistance in ovarian cancers.

“The Emperor of All Maladies” captured the whole essence of cancer. This book gave a very good narrative of the historical record of cancer, the scientists and important public figures who contributed to the fight against a disease that has so much caused despair, pain, disfiguring of the body and worst of all, death. Cancer is seen as the abnormal growth of cells. A normal cell becomes cancerous when there is a defect in the regulation of its growth. Cancerous cells also tend to be elusive and resistant to treatments. Numerous attempts have been channeled into demystifying the nature of cancer. Some of these attempts proved abortive while a few served as a harbinger of hope. Cancer have proved to be part of our genetic makeup, hence, total eradication of it remains a future accomplishment.

Cancer is a topic that has been discussed thoroughly due to the burden that it has on the affected. It has also been researched early on. According to Dr. George Demetri, director at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, cancer violently spreads and attacks organs in the body, which leads to health complications (PBS 1). The world’s understanding of cancer has evolved, but there are still questions that no one has the answer to. Aktipis notes that cancer cells are able to spread to other organs and withstand treatment (Aktipis 2). In other words,the effectiveness of treatment can not be guaranteed due to the the fast pace of spreading. The study of oncology, another term for cancer, started in the eighteenth century and has grown

Cancer that begins in the ovaries is known as ovarian cancer. It affects 250,000 women world-wide each year, with 20,000 of these women living in the United States. Each year, 140,000 women die of the disease. In 2014, approximately 14,270 died from ovarian cancer in the United States, making it one of the most deadly cancers for women. If detected early, ovarian cancer is highly treatable; 94 percent of women who are diagnosed during stage one live at least five years after diagnosis.

Ovarian cancer is a malignant form of cancer that develops from the ovary and it is unlikely to be discovered by most patients during its early stages because its symptoms are very delicate. The fact that prognosis is sometimes difficult to perform makes it impossible for some individuals to be able to effectively fight the tumor. Many women are unable to understand that changes occurring in their bodies are actually a result of ovarian cancer. Hundreds of thousands of women worldwide are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year and it is thus essential for society to have a complex understanding of the disease, its symptoms, and methods of coping with it.

Ovarian cancer is one of the leading cause feminine death. Ovarian cancer is cancer that is located in the female organ that produces eggs. Ovarian cancer is most likely to develop in the females that have lived half a century or more. Ovarian cancer cannot be discovered until it has reached the pelvis area in certain tests. Once it has actually reached the pelvis area, it is considered fatal and this is considered the last stage. There are three types of ovarian cancer: epithelial, stromal, and germ line cancer. Epithelial tumor occurs in the outside layer of the ovary, stromal tumor occurs in the ovarian tissue and germ cell tumor occurs in the egg producing cells. One of the possible causes for ovarian cancer is a known mutation in the

I would like to consider myself an ovarian cancer survivor. It has already been seven years since I have completed my chemotherapy here in Australia. It was a life changing event. With God’s help, I was able to overcome the difficulties the diagnosis presented. The nurses who looked after me were a huge part in supporting not only me but my family from Philippines who were able to visit during the time I am battling cancer.

In this paper I will discuss a case study where Ms. Brown visited a high risk breast and ovarian cancer clinic. Ms. Brown is a 37 year old woman who found a mass while performing a self-breast examination. The case study discusses her medical and surgical history. It also discusses the patient’s family history of cancer maternal as well as paternal. This case study also talks about hormone replacement therapy Ms. Brown briefly took to help reduce her risk of cancer. In this paper I will answer the questions asked in this case study.

The American Cancer Society defines cancer as a disease due to the widespread and uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells in the body which if not treated may cause death.(Smith F.T. and Clark, R. 2011)