Ovarian Cancer Case Studies

Ovarian cancer (OC) is the fifth-leading cause of deaths relating to cancer, with less than half of all patients surviving for more than 5 years following diagnosis. It affects women of all ages, most commonly diagnosed after menopause and aged between 55-65 years, 75% of whom are diagnosed at an advanced stage of the disease. Risk factors include age, hormone therapy, and most notably genetic syndromes, such as BRCA1 mutations which are involved in 10% of OC cases. This essay will present the mechanisms by which OC develops, the symptoms that are produced and how the condition is diagnosed, as well as treatment options culminating in a prognosis for affected individuals, such as Abbi Taylor in our case.
Development of OC
The development of ovarian cancer can be attributed to genome mutations, which is the case with Abbi. Genetic mutations in tumour suppressor genes, such as BRCA 1/2 and TP53 genes, can lead to abnormal cell growth and tumorigenesis. Abbi has a germline mutated BRCA1 gene, which is a hereditary variant of the germ cells. BRCA1 is a gene on the long arm of chromosome 17 at position 17q21, encoding the breast cancer type 1 susceptibility protein, which is made up of 1863 amino acids (3). BRCA1 plays an active role in the regulation of all parts of the cell cycle, as well as DNA repair …show more content…
Symptoms that are typically associated with ovarian cancer are pelvic or abdominal pain, loss of appetite, sensation of satiety, increased abdominal size and bloating, of which Abbi has complained of abdominal pain. Although there are symptoms associated, they are not specific to ovarian cancer, and can be misinterpreted with other conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome which presents abdominal pain and bloating. This outlines the difficulty in detecting early stage ovarian