Ovarian cancer curable, not death sentence, says Doctor

Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologists at Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital (ABUT), Kaduna, Dr Aisha Mustapha, has said Ovarian is not a death sentence.

She disclosed this in an interview to Mark the September Ovarian Cancer Awareness month in Kaduna.

According to her, every month of September is set aside to create awareness on the factors responsible for Ovarian cancer in women and how to prevent it.

The Consultant also said the greatest challenge for women with ovarian cancer is finance, adding that many cannot afford the treatment in Nigeria.

Dr Aisha said while the symptoms of breast cancer are clearer and easy to detect, those of ovarian cancer are quite vague.

She said the symptoms of ovarian cancer are not very clear and even when a woman develops such symptoms, she doesn’t attribute it to the disease because they are things she is used to.

She listed some of the symptoms to include bloating, eaten less heighten fatigue, constant abdominal pain or back pain, change In bladder, and age.

“We need to change this mindset to know that cancer is also a manageable illness, I mean people who have diabetes don’t get killed by it, they just manage it.

“So let’s see cancer as something like that. Something that can be manageable after all a lot of people survived ovarian cancer. We know some of them and we have some of the statistics. Yes a lot of people die from it but even if somebody is going to succumb to the disease, quality of life matters between diagnosis and eventual death. We want to tell the world that ovarian cancer happens and no woman is immune as long as she has ovaries. And if you get ovarian cancer, it’s curable, it’s manageable and it’s not a death sentence.”