What are the symptoms of ovarian cancer?
If a disease manifests itself through typical symptoms, which ideally only occur at certain stages of the disease, early detection is possible. The tricky thing about ovarian tumors is that they do not cause any symptoms in the early stages of the disease. The cancer usually only manifests itself with corresponding symptoms in later stages.
Read more about ovarian cancer here.
Symptoms in the early stages
Symptoms in the advanced stage: non-specific signs
As soon as there are metastases in the abdominal cavity in women with ovarian cancer and as the cancer stages progress (FIGO III and IV), non-specific symptoms usually occur. These are symptoms that are not typical of malignant ovarian tumors and also occur in connection with other diseases.
The most important signs are
- A feeling of pressure in the lower abdomen, possibly accompanied by nausea
- Poor performance, tiredness and exhaustion
- Production of excessive abdominal fluid (ascites), so that the abdomen swells or is thicker – with constant or even falling weight
- Bleeding outside the normal menstrual period, bleeding after the menopause (rare ovarian cancer symptoms)
- B symptoms: Fever, weight loss and night sweats
Swollen lymph nodes in ovarian cancer
In the third stage of cancer, metastases sometimes develop in the lymph nodes. This is because the cells of the cancerous tumor enter the tissue fluid (lymph) and are filtered out by the lymph nodes. They settle there and multiply. The result: the lymph nodes swell. This does not usually cause any symptoms.
Metastases outside the abdominal cavity
In the case of advanced ovarian cancer, the tumor has left the abdominal cavity (FIGO IV). Symptoms are then added that trigger distant metastases in other organs. Metastases in the lungs often remain asymptomatic because they usually settle in the periphery of the lungs – they are therefore located in the marginal structures of the lungs. However, some patients also experience persistent coughing attacks, coughing up blood or pneumonia.
