Many women complains to doctors about symptoms such as abdominal swelling and pain in the months before the cancer is diagnosed, a new study shows.

Ovarian cancer, which is often termed as the "silent killer" because it usually goes undetected until it has spread, isn't so silent. Many women complains to doctors about symptoms such as abdominal swelling and pain in the months before the cancer is diagnosed, a new study shows.

Some patients with ovarian cancer do report symptoms many months before their ultimate diagnosis, and some ovarian cancer patients could have had an earlier diagnosis if pelvic imaging was included in their workup, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing Dr. Lloyd H. Smith, the lead researcher and chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at University of California-Davis. 

In one of the more objective research projects to track whether women show early signs of the disease, Smith and his colleagues determined that nearly half of the 1,985 ovarian cancer patients studied told a doctor about their symptoms up to three months before their disease was diagnosed. Seven percent had complained about abdominal pain, bloating or other disease signs 10 to 12 months earlier.

Abdominal swelling and pain were significantly more common six months prior to diagnosis in the women with ovarian cancer than among women in the noncancer and breast cancer groups, the researchers report.

One to three months before diagnosis, gastrointestinal symptoms and pelvic pain were also more common among women diagnosed with ovarian cancer than among women in the two control groups.

"Our findings suggest that ovarian cancer could be diagnosed earlier in some patients whose diagnosis currently is delayed by at least 4 months, because physicians order abdominal imaging or perform gastrointestinal procedures before they order a test that is more likely to diagnose ovarian cancer," the researchers conclude.