March 11th,

There's a new series of test that could help detect a deadly cancer early on and possibly save more women's lives. What I'm referring to is ovarian cancer, one of the biggest causes of cancer related deaths in women. But a combination of easy to do tests might help us fight back against it.The National Cancer Institute estimates that last year over twenty one thousand women in this country will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer and unfortunately over fifteen thousand will die because of it. This type of cancer has a five year survival rate of around forty five percent. Part of the reason for this low survival rate is because this type of cancer is hard to detect and once it is detected it's often spread beyond the ovaries making tougher to treat.So figuring out a way to find this cancer early on can lead to increasing survival rates. Two separate tests are now used to help find ovarian cancer. One is a blood test, CA-125 and the other a simple ultrasound. Well, now researchers have found that combining the two tests can help detect even more cases earlier on.After testing two hundred thousand women British researchers were able to find ninety percent of those with ovarian cancers on their yearly exams. So although this study is preliminary, it's combining of the two tests give us an even stronger tool to use to fight this deadly illness.