What Questions Should You Ask About Endometrial Cancer Detection?
Gynecological cancer expert Dr. Nita Karnik Lee explains the importance of self-advocacy in endometrial cancer detection, including speaking up when you have concerns and seeking care early.
Dr. Nita Karnik Lee is a Gynecologic Oncologist at The University of Chicago Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Lee.
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Transcript:
Katherine Banwell:
What questions should patients be asking their doctor about detection?
Dr. Nita Karnik Lee:
For uterine cancer or endometrial cancer, detection is really based on symptoms. If there are any of those symptoms that are happening, they really should be asking, hey, I need to see a gynecologist. I need to do a biopsy. We do, unfortunately, see many patients who are sort of told, oh, it must be fibroids. But that shouldn’t happen in post-menopausal patients. I’ve heard everything. I’ve heard patients sort of self-reflect, and say, you know what, I was stressed that day, or I moved the couch that day. I’ve heard all the different things we think about, because none of us wants to feel like there could be something wrong. We often justify. It was probably nothing.
But the patients who do the best are the patients who have a spotting episode, they have a bleeding episode, they seek care right away. And then 80 percent of uterine cancers need only surgery, so that’s a good statistic compared to some of the other GYN cancers. I would say advocating for your symptoms, not being afraid of a symptom being worked up, because I think there’s a lot of fear with, if you report something, maybe it will be something.
And getting over that sensation of it may not be. It may be something completely different that’s benign. But I think the earlier that we can see a diagnosis and get people to treatment and/or hysterectomy, that tends to do the best in terms of survival and just getting over this episode.
