A silent predator could be in your life right now. In fact, you may be one of the 22,430 women that will statistically be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It's possible that you could be in the 15,280 that is estimated to die of said cancer.

Scary? Yes it is. What's even scarier is that you might not even know you have ovarian cancer until it is too late to treat it.

It's incredibly important that women educate themselves, and the teenagers in their lives (whether it's a daughter, sister or niece) early on about what's normal about their body so that they can detect an irregularity. A young woman, regardless of sexual activity, should visit a gynecologist by her 18th birthday to make sure that her body is working as it should be at that age. If they become sexually active, then it's imperative that they go to a gynecologist for a check-up and get the proper tests done. The more that we know about our body, the easier it might be to catch any irregularities or the early onsets of silent predators such as ovarian cancer.

Some ovarian cancer statistics:

* Ovarian cancer is the 8th most common cancer among women, excluding non-melanoma skin cancers. Ovarian cancer accounts for about 3% of all cancers in women.
* A woman's risk of getting ovarian cancer during her lifetime is 1.5% or about 1 in 67. Her lifetime chance of dying from ovarian cancer is 1.05% or 1 in 95. The risk of developing and dying from ovarian cancer is higher for white women than black women.
* Ovarian cancer ranks fifth in cancer deaths among women, accounting for more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system.
* About 76% of women with ovarian cancer survive 1 year after diagnosis, and 45% survive longer than 5 years after diagnosis. Women younger than age 65 have better 5-year survival rates than older women. If diagnosed and treated while the cancer has not spread outside the ovary, the 5-year survival rate is 93%. However, only 19% of all ovarian cancers are found at this early stage.

According to the American Cancer Society, ovarian cancer may have several signs and symptoms that will more likely to be present if the disease has spread BEYOND the ovaries. That is where it gets scary. It doesn't end there. If the symptoms were something really out of the ordinary, then there might be a little more hope. The ACS has identified symptoms of Ovarian Cancer as:

* bloating
* pelvic or abdominal pain
* trouble

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