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The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday warned women and their doctors that current screening tests for ovarian cancer are unreliable and could lead to false diagnoses.
In a statement, the FDA said it was “especially concerned about delaying effective preventive treatments for women who show no symptoms, but who are still at increase risk of ovarian cancer.”
Ovarian cancer is the fifth-leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women. The National Cancer Institute estimates that this year more than 22,000 women between ages 35 and 74 will be diagnosed with the disease.
Those at highest risk are women who have reached menopause, those who have a family history of ovarian cancer, and women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic mutations.
When detected at its earliest stages, the five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is 90 percent, according to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition. Unfortunately, only about 20 percent of all cases are discovered at this stage. Nearly 15,000 women a year, die from the disease.
The most widely used screening test is called the CA 125, which measures the...