The challenges of fighting gynecological cancers (PBS video)

The challenges of fighting gynecological cancers:

PBS journalist Gwen Ifill passed away Monday after a battle with endometrial cancer. Do gynecological cancers receive the attention they deserve? Hari Sreenivasan talks to Dr. Angela Marshall of the Black Women's Health Imperative and Dr. Karen Lu of the MD Anderson Cancer Center to discuss what’s being done to diagnose and treat these cancers.


DR. KAREN LU: I think there’s two gaps.
I think there’s a gap where women don’t know that there are early symptoms of these cancers, and so don’t recognize them. And then there’s also a gap when they report these symptoms. Sometimes, they can be nonspecific. And certainly, with ovarian cancer, women will present with bloating or their bellies will be bigger, very nonspecific pain.
And, sometimes, physicians will dismiss these symptoms and not fully work up and think about ovarian cancer or other gynecologic cancers as a cause.