Screening for ovarian cancer: An Overview of the Screening Recommendations of the 1994 NIH Consensus Conference

Abstract Although ovarian cancer is only approximately one-sixth as common in the United States as breast cancer, it results in the death of two-thirds of affected women. A major reason for the high mortality rate is the fact that the disease is usually deteted at an advanced state. A goal of physicians, therefore, is to improve our capability to detect the disease at an early stage. The National Institutes of Health held a Consensus Development Conference on ovarian cancer in April 1994. One of the issues that was addressed was the current status of screening capabilities for ovarian cancer. This paper reports the findings of the Consensus Development Panel on that issue.