Tracking what women buy, through the data on their cards, can help detect those with early signs of cancer, say a team of doctors from Imperial College London. The researchers found that frequent purchases of over-the-counter pain relievers and indigestion tablets reveal an increased risk of ovarian cancer.
Ovarian cancer is often diagnosed late. There is no reliable screening test, and symptoms, such as swelling, can be vague and mistaken for other common, harmless conditions.
Symptoms include:
• Swollen or bloated stomach
• indigestion
• Loss of appetite or feeling full very quickly after eating
• Need to urinate more often
Early diagnosis improves the chance of successful treatment of this disease.
Fiona’s story
Fiona Murphy was 25 years old when she was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer and underwent treatment. For a couple of years, the young woman had been having stomach aches and indigestion. On several occasions other doctors had thought that she could be dealing with irritable bowel syndrome.
Murphy said: “I lived on Gaviscon (the medicine to treat heartburn and reflux) for months and months before I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He went everywhere with the medicine. I could not leave the house without her. My symptoms were vague but they were frequent and continuous. And that is what you have to keep in mind”. Her symptoms continued and a scan revealed a large mass.
Now Fiona, 39, has been helping the Imperial College team with their investigation of her. “I wanted to help with the development of this study because for almost 2 years I was misdiagnosed”, she says. “If there is a way to get an earlier diagnosis, I want to help people who are in the same situation that I was in. Having an early diagnosis is vital. If my cancer had been detected earlier, I could have had far fewer surgeries and better fertility options”.
Dr. James Flanagan, lead author of the study funded by Cancer Research UK, 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. Using the purchasing data, our study found a marked increase in pain and indigestion medication purchases among women with ovarian cancer, up to eight months before diagnosis, compared with women without ovarian cancer. This suggests that long before women recognize that their symptoms are alarming enough to go to their GP, they may be treating those symptoms at home”, he adds.
The researchers worked with 2 large stores and 283 customers, who agreed to share their purchasing data for more than 6 years. More than half of them had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
More studies are needed to confirm the findings
Now the team plans to test whether the purchasing data can also help detect other types of cancer, such as stomach, liver and bladder cancer. The study was published in the journal JMIR Public Health and Surveillance.
