Nausea, abdominal pain, lethargy and tiredness.
The mild pains described above are something many people can experience within a week. But in some cases these are also the only symptoms of ovarian cancer.
The fact that the symptoms are so diffuse makes the disease difficult to detect. Often the diagnosis is made so late that there is no longer a treatment.
Researchers in Great Britain wanted to do something about that, and to achieve that they have gone to work creatively.
Map the shopping trips
Every single day, amounts of data are collected through various customer clubs. What people do is recorded and stored.
Your shopping pattern over time can say a lot about you as a person, and this is exactly what researchers at Imperial College London have tried to exploit.
The researchers mapped the shopping habits of almost 300 women in a grocery store and a pharmacy for six years.
SELF-MEDICATION: By taking as a starting point which goods the women shopped for, they could see when the women started to self-medicate with non-prescription drugs. Illustration photo: Ingvild Gjerdsjø / TV 2
Then they found that a sudden change in the buying pattern of the women could actually reveal a serious illness long before the diagnosis was made by a doctor.
Eight months earlier
Of the 273 women who took part in the study, 153 had previously been diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
The sick women began to buy noticeably more painkillers and digestive medicine compared to the other women.
– The cancer symptoms we look for are very common, but for some women they can be the first signs of something more serious, says Dr James Flanagan.
He has led the studywhich is a collaboration between Imperial College London, London’s Global University and the University of Birmingham.
– This suggests that the women, long before they realize that the symptoms are alarming enough for them to go to the doctor, treat them themselves at home, he says.
UNIQUE: Taking shopping habits as a starting point to detect cancer has never been done before, according to the researchers. Photo: Frode Sunde / TV 2
– Can save lives
Dr James Flanagan tells TV 2 that early diagnosis of ovarian cancer has everything to say for the further prognosis.
If the disease is detected at stage one or two, there is a 90 percent chance of living after five years, according to the researcher. If the diagnosis is made late in the fourth stage, the survival rate is only 13 percent.
– Being able to make the diagnosis at an earlier stage will very likely save lives, says Flanagan to TV 2.
Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common form of cancer among women in Norway. In 2021, 531 women received the diagnosis, while 281 died of the disease, figures show The Cancer Registry.
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As many as 70 percent have spread when they receive the diagnosis.
Flanagen points out that the medicine bought in the store is used to alleviate many ailments other than cancer. Therefore, the specificity of the test is currently quite low.
– It will be up to the doctor to make the diagnosis. The most important thing is to make sure that women who experience these symptoms discuss them with a doctor as soon as possible, he says.
RESEARCHER: DR James Flanagan at Imperial College London. Photo: Imperial College London Photo: Private
On Health Norway everyone is encouraged to contact a doctor if the symptoms last for more than three weeks.
– Incredible
Dr David Crosby, who heads the department that researches prevention at Cancer Research UK, sees great potential in the study.
– In the digital age, we live with a wealth of data around us. Studies like this are a good example of how we can use the information for something good and detect cancer earlier, he says in a press release on Imperial College London’s pages.
He finds it fascinating to think that something as simple as a shop membership card, which many of us carry around in our wallets, can be a key to preventing serious cancer.
CHALLENGING: Ovarian cancer is often detected late in the course. Only half of the women who receive the diagnosis are alive after five years. Photo: Frode Sunde / TV 2
– It is incredible to think that this can help women with ovarian cancer, which is often diagnosed late and which resembles the symptoms of other, less serious diseases, says Crosby.
– Hardly realistic
The cancer registry also finds it exciting to use non-traditional methods to find patterns in disease development – preferably driven by data and artificial intelligence. They see clear trends to more and more research in this area.
– It is clearly important and interesting to work to find new signals to detect cancer early enough – not least such cancers as ovarian cancer, which for a long time have a very silent course, and typically cause few or no clear physical ailments and symptoms, says communications manager Elisabeth Jakobsen.
DEVELOPMENT: Elisabeth Jakobsen at the Cancer Registry believes that we will make greater use of data to detect disease in the future. Photo: The Cancer Registry
However, she questions how precise this method is, considering what the women have bought ahead of the diagnosis.
When it comes to using this type of data routinely, to detect possible disease, she sees some challenges, including those related to privacy.
– There are very strict rules for what data can be used for, and which consents are needed in relation to what the original purpose of a data collection is. Thus, a study with this design is unlikely to be completely realistic in Norway, says Jakobsen.
Recently, Statistics Norway wanted to make use of data on the Norwegian population by means of grocery purchases. Then the Norwegian Data Protection Authority put its foot down for reasons of privacy, writes The IT online newspaper Digi.
MORE: The women with ovarian cancer started taking more painkillers than the women who had not been diagnosed, the study shows. Photo: Frode Sunde / TV 2
Has big ambitions
Dr James Flanagan also sees challenges in using the method on a larger scale, to detect cancer in the general population.
– The main problem with this is that we have to have a system where people with loyalty cards consent to their data being used for this purpose, says Flanagan.
If the researchers overcome this obstacle, they believe the method can be used to identify women with persistent symptoms that they should discuss with a doctor.
– Hopefully, if they have ovarian cancer, the women will get the diagnosis sooner than they otherwise would have.
However, the ambition does not stop there.
– I don’t know if the data will ever be specific enough to actually diagnose ovarian cancer, although we are working towards that goal, says Flanagan.
In addition, the researchers plan to carry out a similar study where they start with ten different cancers.
– I am sure that it can be useful for many other diseases beyond cancer, he says.
