Resource Center
The key to battling any serious illness is education. If you are a patient or a loved one searching for answers after a diagnosis of mucinous ovarian cancer (MOC), you might be feeling frustrated by how difficult information is to come by.
We get it. We’ve been there.
To help families learn more about the disease, we created this Resource Center. Our goal is to help families learn more about MOC, including what it is and why it’s so different. We also share links to research you might find insightful.
What Is Mucinous Ovarian Cancer (MOC)?
Mucinous ovarian cancer is a rare and distinct type of epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC). Tumors tend to be large, with a median diameter of 18 to 20 cm, or 7.087 to 7.874 inches.
In the past, MOC was often misdiagnosed as various types of gastrointestinal cancer, such as colon or pancreas. That’s because at an advanced stage, MOC can be difficult to distinguish from cancers that started elsewhere (colon, appendix, pancreas, stomach) and spread to the ovary.
This led researchers to believe 10%–15% of ovarian cancer diagnoses were MOC. In the last few years, however, the scientific community has gotten better at diagnosing MOC. Clearer criteria have resulted in a refinement in the number of cases. We now know that the number is actually 3% of all ovarian cancer diagnoses in the US, and 4%–5% worldwide.
Treatment typically involves both surgery to debulk the tumor and chemotherapy. Instead of standard ovarian cancer chemotherapy, gastrointestinal chemotherapy may be used. While there is no definitive evidence yet to prove how effective it is, researchers believe this treatment may be more suitable because the pathology of MOC aligns with gastrointestinal cancers.
Targeted therapy based on a patient’s personal tumor profile is also increasingly being explored for women with MOC.
As is true of any type of rare cancer, you may wish to seek a second opinion. Learn more about second opinions for mucinous ovarian cancer, including physicians to consider, here