A Sydney mother who must use her superannuation to access ovarian cancer medication says not enough is being done to improve survival rates.

“I feel like I have a responsibility to scream and shout loudly about this and say ‘hey, this is killing women in Australia,'” Vanja Wilson, 39, said.

Wilson was diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer in May after her first symptom, a golf ball-sized bump on her abdomen, was dismissed.

Her GP thought it was scar tissue from two C-sections, but sent Wilson for an ultrasound.

“He came back and said it was probably just a torn muscle, nothing to worry about,” she said.

Six months later, she discovered blood in her stool and a colonoscopy confirmed it was cancer.

“We knew from the biopsy that it was ovarian cancer, but we didn’t know how far it had spread,” she said.

Wilson was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer, meaning it has spread to other parts of her body.

Doctors performed six hours of surgery to remove the cancer, and Wilson just completed 16 weeks of chemotherapy.

“That’s the problem with ovarian cancer, it’s detected so late,” she said.

“I was so full of energy and life than I ever imagined.”

About 70 percent of women with ovarian cancer are diagnosed when the disease is already advanced, and for those in stage 4, there is a 90 percent chance that the cancer will return even after aggressive treatment.

Wilson is doing everything he can to fight the disease, including funding a drug that will delay his return, but it will come at a huge financial cost.

She is dipping into her pension to help pay for a daily pill called Zejula, which is only available under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme for people with a hereditary cancer gene.

“At this point, I’m not talking about retirement, I’m talking about survival,” she said.

The Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation says that while the decision to list drugs on the PBS is based on clinical evidence, many women like Wilson are disadvantaged because of grant limits.

“I don’t think it’s acceptable with so few treatment options for women with ovarian cancer,” said Robin Penty, CEO of the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation.

“It’s heartbreaking. I think all women with ovarian cancer face significant financial barriers.”

Despite his own struggles, Vanja raised $25,000 for the foundation, which provided seed funding for researchers such as Professor Carlos Salomon Gallo from the University of Queensland.

His work on a blood test received a significant boost, with additional funding from OCRF and the federal government providing more than $1.4 million through the National Health and Medical Research Council.

A study of 1,000 women has already shown that the test called OCRF-7 is more than 90% accurate in identifying stage 1 and 2 ovarian cancer.

This compares to the current CA-125 test which identified ovarian cancer in 60 percent of patients.

The test identifies exosomes or information bubbles released by tumor cells on the surface of the ovary and fallopian tubes into the bloodstream.

“If everything goes as planned, we should be able to have enough data to make a decision about whether we will actually be able to offer this test to the community in about three to four years,” said the Professor Salomon Gallo.

He knows that early detection is key to increasing survival rates.

“The majority of women who suffer from this terrible disease do not have any symptoms. In the future, we would like to implement this test as a screening program for the Australian population,” he said.

Five women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer every day in Australia and the average five-year survival rate is 49 percent, compared to 92 percent for breast cancer and 74 percent for cervical cancer. ‘uterus.

“We have bowel cancer screening tests, we have cervical cancer vaccines, there’s nothing for ovarian cancer and you know, I have two daughters. It’s just scary,” Wilson said.