A quarter of women with the deadliest form of ovarian cancer could have the disease detected at an earlier stage through appropriate testing and faster referral to specialist care, a study shows.

This also meant that patients whose cancer had already spread before diagnosis required a “relatively straightforward” operation to remove the cancer.

The researchers hope the findings will help encourage more primary care physicians to test for ovarian cancer and encourage women with symptoms to get screened.

There is no national screening programme for ovarian cancer in the UK, although a procedure called ‘symptom-triggered testing’ was introduced in 2011.

According to these guidelines, women with symptoms such as bloating, stool changes, appetite changes or abdominal pain should undergo a blood test and an ultrasound as a priority.

If the results are abnormal, you should be referred to hospital within two weeks.

However, Professor Sudha Sundar of the Pan Birmingham Gynaecological Cancer Centre in Birmingham told the PA news agency that the benefit of the method had “never been really clear”.

She said: “Although it has been around since 2011, it has never been really clear whether it is useful for patients.

“There has always been some confusion in the medical community about the usefulness of this method, as it was believed that women with symptoms were likely to have advanced cancer.

“Our study has shown that you can detect it, but you can also detect it earlier.”

For the study, researchers analyzed data from the Refining Ovarian Cancer Test Accuracy Scores (ROCkeTS), a study involving participants from 24 hospitals in the UK.

Of the 1,741 patients in the fast-track procedure, 119 were diagnosed with high-grade serous ovarian cancer.

About 25.2% of the group were in the first or second stage of the disease.

Ninety-three percent of women diagnosed with stage one or two ovarian cancer survive beyond five years. However, for women diagnosed at advanced stages of the disease, the survival rate drops to 13 percent.

Almost two-thirds of the women – 78 of 119 – underwent surgery to remove as many cancer cells as possible from the abdomen, while 36 patients received chemotherapy before surgery.

Five of the 119 women did not undergo any surgery at all.

Prof Sundar told PA: “We know that this particular cancer, the most common form of ovarian cancer, has a tendency to spread into the abdomen.

“A quarter of the women had stage one disease, which is fantastic. But even when the disease had already spread, we were able to show that the spread was moderate in the majority of women.

“This means that the cancer can be removed through a relatively uncomplicated operation.

“We have the potential to not only identify women with cancer, but also detect ovarian cancer at a stage where it makes a very big difference to the patient.”

Prof Sundar added that she hoped the findings, published in the International Journal of Gynaecological Cancer, would raise awareness of ovarian cancer among both general practitioners and patients.

According to Cancer Research UK, around 7,500 women are diagnosed with the disease each year.

“We hope these documents will increase awareness among primary care physicians to test for ovarian cancer when treating women with these symptoms, especially older women,” she added.

“We also hope that women with these symptoms know that something is wrong and talk to their GP.”