About Ovarian Cancer Action
Women don't just deserve better; they deserve the best
In 2023, the odds are against women with ovarian cancer surviving more than 5 and 10 years. In fact, only 3 in 10 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer live beyond 10 years. It’s unacceptable. With more and more women predicted to get ovarian cancer over that period, it’s vital we make faster progress to reach a vision of ovarian cancer being survivable for all women.
In fact, we’re so determined, that we’re supercharging our ambitions; to transform survival rates so by 2032 at least half of women with ovarian cancer live for 10 years. And we’re focused on driving improvements in three key areas:
Knowledge
Shockingly, only 1 in 10 women know the main symptoms of ovarian cancer. We can save thousands more lives by equipping people with the information that can prevent ovarian cancer in those at highest risk and diagnose ovarian cancer in others as early as possible. Our lifesaving awareness campaigns need to reach more women, health professionals and higher risk communities to cut through the noise and change the future for women of today and tomorrow.
Breakthroughs
We need to develop ground-breaking new treatments, be on the path to a screening programme and build better care pathways to give patients more options to get rid of their cancer or keep it under control for as long as possible. We’ve invested over £12 million in pioneering scientific and clinical research to build breakthroughs since our inception in 2006, more than any other ovarian cancer charity. We’ve opened the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre (OCARC), Europe’s first ever centre dedicated to ovarian cancer research. And we continue to run our HHMT International Forum on Ovarian Cancer, which has been bringing together the world’s leading scientists to determine research priorities around the globe since 1987. Last year alone, our incredible researchers contributed 11 new ovarian cancer discoveries. But we need to make giant leaps now, not small steps.
Fairness
We must make sure that women are able to access the best care and information regardless of age, ethnicity, or location, to have the best chance of survival. In 2020, we bid for and secured £1.2m from the Tampon Tax Fund to deliver our game changing IMPROVE UK project. In partnership with the British Gynaecological Cancer Society, this project is tackling severe regional and systemic inequalities in outcomes experienced by patients. This can lead to immediate transformation in our health care systems for women with ovarian cancer.
Progress has been made over last 30 years, but it’s not enough. Ovarian cancer is an incredibly complex disease with shockingly low survival rates. The Covid pandemic and Brexit has made the situation worse for patients and has also affected the UK research community over the last few years. We must accelerate progress, so we see the same fast and consistent improvements in ovarian cancer as we’ve seen in prostate and breast cancer.
