By Jenny Song

America’s Funny Girl

Gilda Radner’s death 20 years ago raised new awareness of a disease that women still face too frequently today

By Jenny Song

In the following weeks, Radner ran a low-grade fever. The fog and fever waxed and waned, and by April she began experiencing pelvic cramping. Blood tests revealed nothing, and her gynecologist dismissed her pain as mittelschmerz—abdominal pain associated with ovulation.

Throughout the summer, Radner experienced stomach and bowel problems. Her gynecologist referred her to a gastroenterologist, who said her problems were emotional and tied to stress. (He told her he’d heard her recent movie hadn’t done too well.) Soon after, Radner complained of an “aching, gnawing pain” in her upper thighs and in her legs. Her gastroenterologist prescribed large doses of an anti-inflammatory drug and told her a CT scan was unnecessary. Although a self-described “queen of neurosis,” Radner believed her symptoms had a physical cause. She became frustrated and determined to find out what was wrong with her. “I knew I may have been neurotic,” she wrote in her book, “but I also knew that what was happening to me was real.”

In September 1986, Radner took a train from her home in Connecticut to see a doctor in Boston who had treated hundreds of patients who had Epstein-Barr virus. On Oct. 20, her internist in Los Angeles called to tell Radner that blood work showed irregularities in her liver function. A CT scan and fluid extracted from her belly confirmed a malignancy, and she was diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer. She immediately underwent surgery and had a hysterectomy. On Oct. 26, surgeons removed a grapefruit-size tumor from her abdomen.

Doctors took at least 10 months to diagnose Radner with ovarian cancer. Sadly, her story of delayed diagnosis is still common among ovarian cancer patients today, says Barbara Goff, a gynecologic oncologist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. A 2000 study led by Goff found that ovarian cancer patients were frequently misdiagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome or told their symptoms were due to stress. “Thirty percent of women were even given a prescription to treat a completely different disease before they were diagnosed with ovarian cancer,” she says.

When ovarian cancer has not spread beyond the ovary, the five-year survival rate is 92 percent today. However, a woman’s five-year survival rate for stage IV disease is much lower—about 17.5 percent. And 70 percent of ovarian cancer patients are diagnosed with stage III disease or later, says gynecologic oncologist M. Steven Piver, who founded the Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. “The reason,” he says, “is because the symptoms are so vague: abdominal bloating, pelvic pain, change in bowel habits.”

But although symptoms are nonspecific, ovarian cancer is not a silent disease, explains gynecologic oncologist Shashi Lele, the director of the Gilda Radner Familial Ovarian Cancer Registry. In 2007, the Gynecologic Cancer Foundation, the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance, the Society of Gynecologic Oncologists, and more than 35 other organizations issued a consensus statement to educate women about ovarian cancer’s symptoms. (See "Ovarian Cancer Symptoms.")

Unfortunately for Radner, her symptoms were not recognized as being associated with ovarian cancer until too late.