Researchers at UC Davis in California have found that almost one-third of ovarian cancer patients have survived a minimum of ten years after their diagnosis. The findings of the study were published online today in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

As per study researchers, the current reputation of ovarian cancer patients is that women diagnosed with ovarian cancer face a very low rate of survival. But findings of this new study have surprised researchers as it confirmed that there are a large amount of long-term survivors of ovarian cancer.

Study lead author Rosemary Cress said, “The perception that almost all women will die of this disease is not correct. This information will be helpful to physicians who first diagnose these patients and the obstetricians/gynecologists who take care of them after they receive treatment from specialists”.

Cress for the study accessed data from the California Cancer Registry of all California residents diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer between 1994 and 2001.

She found that 3,582 of the 11.541 patients in the registry actually survived more than ten years after the diagnosis. Cress said she and her team were shocked after findings that 954 of more than 3,000 survivors at one point were believed to be at a very high risk of dying from ovarian cancer.

Study co-author Gary Leiserowitz, a professor of gynecologic oncology, stated that the study’s findings will prove beneficial for counseling patients battling with ovarian cancer.

Leiserowitz further affirmed that several patients and physicians know that ovarian cancer is a dangerous cancer, but they actually don’t realize that there is a significant biological variability among patients.