Loyalty card data on over-the-counter medicine purchases could help spot ovarian cancer cases earlier and enable more patients to fully recover, researchers have found.
Pain and indigestion medication purchases were higher in women who went on to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer, usually about eight months later, according to a study of almost 300 women led by Imperial College London researchers.
Dr James Flanagan, the lead author of the study, said: “The cancer symptoms we are looking for are very common, but for some women they could be the first signs of something more serious.
“As we know early diagnosis of ovarian cancer is key to improving chances of survival, we hope this research can lead to ovarian cancer symptoms being picked up earlier and improve patients’ options for treatment.”
The researchers said the study, which was funded by Cancer Research UK and includes scientists from UCL and the University of Birmingham, was the first of its kind for cancer.
Early symptoms of ovarian cancer include loss of appetite, stomach pain and bloating, which leads to some people buying painkillers and digestive aids such as antacids from a pharmacy instead of visiting a GP, because they do not think their condition is serious.
This lack of clear signs results in many people with ovarian cancer being diagnosed late, often when the cancer has already spread and when their likelihood of survival is much lower.
Fiona Murphy, an ovarian cancer patient who helped develop the study, said she “lived on Gaviscon for 18 months” before she was diagnosed in 2008.
“It went everywhere with me due to severe acid reflux. Had this been associated with ovarian cancer, I would have had a faster diagnosis, far less surgeries and better fertility options,” she said.
Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the UK, with about 7,400 people diagnosed each year, and there are more than 4,000 deaths each year from the disease.
Survival rates are much higher for people diagnosed at the earliest stage relative to the latest – 93% compared with 13%. One in five people with ovarian cancer are diagnosed in A&E and many do not receive any treatment for their disease, often because they are too unwell by the time they are diagnosed.
The study used six years’ worth of purchase histories using loyalty card data from two UK-based high street retailers of 283 women, of whom 153 had ovarian cancer.
Participants were asked to complete a short questionnaire about ovarian cancer risk factors, the symptoms they experienced and the number of visits to their GP in the year leading up to cancer referral or diagnosis.
On average, participants with ovarian cancer began to recognise their symptoms about four and a half months before diagnosis. Of those who visited a GP to check their symptoms, the first visit occurred, on average, about three and a half months before diagnosis.
More research is needed to confirm the study’s findings, including larger studies with patients diagnosed at different stages, as well as to determine if it works for other cancers with non-specific symptoms, such as stomach, liver and bladder cancers.
Eventually, the researchers hope that an alert system could be developed to encourage people to seek medical attention for symptoms of cancer or other diseases sooner than they might do otherwise.
