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Ovarian CancerArrow
Less than 2 years since diagnosis
Interview OV14  

Interview OV14

Age at Interview: 54
Sex: Female
Age at Diagnosis: 53
Background: Retired day centre social worker, married, 2 adult children.
Brief outline:Ovarian cancer diagnosed in 2002 following abdominal ache. Treated by surgical removal of ovaries and womb followed by chemotherapy.


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Was offered a choice of carboplatin alone or combined with paclitaxel.

 



We did talk about the different chemotherapies but my husband and I had already come to a decision about that. The present, or at least the gold standard was a combination of Taxol and carboplatin. I'd found out that the Taxol causes the more severe side effects but the research that they had to hand then was that it produced slightly better results if you used the 2 in combination. Although I believe NICE have recently brought out a new report on that. But anyway, the present gold standard then was the combination of the two. 

Now for some women hair loss is not acceptable and they go just for the carboplatin on its own, which is, you know, fair enough. But with Taxol it is almost a certainty that you're going to lose all your hair. I'd read that a cold cap could help prevent the hair loss but I thought if my hair's just going to start thinning and look awful, I'd really rather just lose it all and have the benefit of having the Taxol as well.  
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