Keeping the Promise
The Bobbi Olson Endowment for Ovarian Cancer Research: Keeping the Promise
By Wendy Sweet, first published in Tucson Lifestyle, December 2005
Coach Lute Olson and the Olson family’s recent donation of $1 million to the Arizona Cancer Center is drawing attention to the prevention and treatment of ovarian cancer. Here’s what you need to know about this disease, which is expected to strike some 24,000 women this year.
It’s been called the silent killer. But it turns out ovarian cancer is not really all that silent. “Studies show 95 percent of women with ovarian cancer do have symptoms,” says Molly Brewer, M.D., D.V.M. Director, Gynecologic Oncology at the Arizona Cancer Center. “However, they are not definitive symptoms. As a result, either the woman doesn’t go to a doctor when the symptoms first appear, or her doctor doesn’t diagnose the problem as ovarian cancer.”
Ovarian cancer ranks fourth in cancer deaths among women. It’s estimated about 24,000 new cases of ovarian cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S. in 2005, and more than 16,000 women are expected to die from ovarian cancer in the U.S. this year.
The fight to find a cure for ovarian cancer has a couple of high-profile champions here in Tucson: Lute and Christine Olson. Lute, University of Arizona men’s head basketball coach, lost his first wife Bobbi to the disease in 2001. Lute and his family have given time, money and ideas to the cause.
“It goes back to Bobbi’s last wishes,” Lute says. “This was our family’s commitment to her before she died. She asked that we do everything in our power to find a cure for this horrible diseases.”
When found at an early stage (before the cancer has spread outside the ovary), the five-year survival rate is 90 to 95 percent. But only 19 percent of all ovarian cancers are found at the early stage. The statistics are daunting: about 77 percent of women survive one year after diagnosis of ovarian cancer; 44 percent survive longer than five years. In general, younger women have a longer survival time than older women. Much of the cutting edge-research to find ways to prevent and detect ovarian cancer is being performed right here in Tucson at the Arizona Cancer Center. Over the next few pages, you’ll learn about ovarian cancer– and what’s being done in the fight against it.
For more information, please contact us at 1/800/327/CURE, or in Tucson at 520-626-5279
