Free Image Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The signs of gynecological cancer can be elusive to most women.

The most common symptoms; fatigue, bloating and back pain, can be mistaken as benign annoyances which happen from time to time.

So, when do you need to be concerned that there may be something more serious which needs your attention?

There will be nearly 90,000 cases of gynecological cancers diagnosed in the U.S. in 2012, with more than half of those being cervical cancer, according to estimates from the National Cancer Institute. About 30,000 women will die of these five cancers this year; the deadliest of the five is ovarian cancer, which will cause about half of these deaths.

Knowing what is normal for you is the best way help your doctor monitor changes and what those changes may mean for your health.

A government panel has found that hormone therapy is not recommended for menopausal women.

U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are definitively decisive in their findings that the risks of hormone replacement therapy outweigh the benefits to menopausal women over 50.

The new recommendations are based on a review of data, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, covering nine clinical trials over the last decade.
The standard of care shifted for many doctors after the Women’s Health Initiative trial was halted, but updated recommendations from the task force are important because many patients still have questions, and many doctors are reluctant to let go of old prescribing habits, Crandall said.

Hormone replacement therapy was given routinely to women to mitigate symptoms that might develop and to prevent the development of cardiovascular diseases.