September 8, 2003

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Charlotte Davis and Martha Chandler are on a mission prompted by their own bad-news, good-news experiences with cancer of the ovaries.

The bad news is obvious — the startling diagnosis for a cancer that carries a high risk of death. Their mere presence a few years after treatment makes the good news also obvious — their disease was picked up in early stages with a good chance of survival.

Davis, 41, and Chandler, 57, are now on a mission to help raise awareness of this disease and to lobby for more research to reduce its loss of life. They and other members of their support group at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) will meet with health professionals to develop strategies at the annual meeting of the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance in San Francisco September 17-21.

Both women’s cancer was diagnosed at their annual gynecological checkups. “It is so important for women to get checked regularly, by a physician who has a high index of attentiveness for this disease, said Davis. “I was very, very, very lucky that my gynecologist was quick to give me further tests when she felt a mass in my abdomen. It might have been dismissed as an ovarian cyst, but I was given ultrasound and then a blood test that can help define the diagnosis,” she said.

Chandler had her own reason to be sure to maintain her regular GYN checkup. Her younger sister, a missionary in Africa, had been diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer in 1998. She underwent extensive surgery as well as experimental gene therapy at UAB, but the tumor’s spread was fatal. The following year at her own annual checkup, Chandler made sure to mention some stomach upset that she hoped was due to an ulcer. That clue led a very alert gynecologist to conduct tests that led to the diagnosis.

“Treatments are changing rapidly as research progresses,” Chandler said. “Things were different even from the year before with my sister. But the difference is that we don’t have an early diagnosis tool such as mammography for breast cancer.”

“Ovarian cancer has no specific symptoms, and without a good screening test it’s usually found too late for treatment to save you,” Davis said. Both women had surgery and intense chemotherapy. But in a few months they recovered and resumed their busy lives.

After her surgery Chandler retired from public school teaching in Vestavia Hills but today is back at the physically demanding role of activities director for the First Baptist Church of Pleasant Grove.

Davis is associate director of the UAB Institutional Review Board, the office that is charged with reviewing all human research at the university for safety and other issues that affect participants in clinical trials. She also is official advocate on behalf of patients for a major federal grant for ovarian cancer to UAB’s Comprehensive Cancer Center. “In the research program I look for much the same issues as at my regular job, advising on how to increase the comfort and convenience for patients and reduce or eliminate any possible risks the experimental treatments may hold for them.”