What are the chances of a 17, almost 18, year old having ovarian cancer ?

[alistaire92]

I've looked at a few different sites with symptoms of ovarian cancer and I have many of them it seems like. My mom has had problems with her ovaries. She's only 40 and already has had a partial hysterectomy. So what are the chances of a 17 year old having ovarian cancer?
Thank you to all who answer.

[addis94]

1. Hysterectomy is a surgical method, not a diagnose. In ovarian cancer it would be the wrong surgical method because it is the removal of the uterus, not of the ovar, which has to be removed together with surrounding lymph nodes in ovarian cancer.. Hysterectomy can have some other cancer as reason but also myoma, which are non malignant, descending uterus, dilatation (e.g. after the 10th delivery) and many more other reasons. It is therefore very likely that your mother doesn't have ovarian cancer at all and more likely that you also don't have it. In the age of 17 it would be a (negative) miracle. Nearly all patients are in the late 30s, early 40s, which doesn't make anything better.
2. Chances: Ovarian cancer is the most ugly and nasty cancer on this planet.. Depending on the definition of "survival" it might look optimistic that in literature 50% of the patients survive the first 5 years after diagnose. In real life the chances are zero. Therapy can only extend life for a little bit of time.

[nykko65]

Seventeen-year-olds don't get ovarian cancer. It's a cancer that strikes older women.

[conor]

I knew a 17 year old with Ovarian cancer. She had chemo and is fine now. It can happen at any age.
Hers was a stage 2.

[werner]

No. Very very small chance. I say that as someone who did have ovarian cancer at that age. I also worked on the efforts of ovarian cancer survivors to prove that ovarian cancer has symptoms, because back then they used to call it "the silent killer" and say it had no symptoms. That said, now, when people read the symptoms, they freak out because the symptoms are very very generalized, and are the sort that probably most women of childbearing age have had. So when they read them, they think they have ovarian cancer. But they don't. The symptoms mainly apply to women not of childbearing age who have those symptoms. Because if you're a normally menstruating woman, you'll typically have those symptoms anyway. So chill out, you don't have ovarian cancer.

[brodrick]

Nobody here can judge your likelihood of having ovarian cancer. However, I need to address a couple of the other answers that stated ovarian cancer is unheard of before the age of 40 or whatever they said.

Ovarian cancer is rare in children and teenagers, but it absolutely can happen. Germ cell tumors (ovarian and testicular) can happen at any age. I have known children with ovarian germ cell tumors diagnosed at 18 months and 16 years, as well as in between.

[che]

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