What Are the Key Statistics About Ovarian Cancer?
• Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer among women, excluding non-melanoma skin cancers. The American Cancer Society estimates that about 23,400 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed in the United States during 2001. Ovarian cancer accounts for 4% of all cancers in women. • The good news is that the ovarian cancer incidence rate has been slowly decreasing since 1991. The incidence rate is a precise way for scientists to describe how common or rare a disease is. The ovarian cancer incidence rate is defined as the number of new cases diagnosed each year per 10,000 women. • Ovarian cancer ranks fifth in cancer deaths among women, accounting for more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system. It is estimated that there will be about 13,900 deaths from ovarian cancer in the United States during 2001. • The five-year survival rate is used to provide a standard way of discussing prognosis. It refers to the percentage of patients who live at least five ye
