Studies have recurrently highlighted the fact that endometrial cancer is more common in women in the postmenopausal period. However, there has been an increase in the number of women being diagnosed with endometrial cancer at a significantly earlier age. It is also apparent that the younger women being diagnosed with the disease have a lower survival rate, especially because the cancer is discovered at its late stages. In most cases, doctors do not suspect endometrial cancer in women below 35 years old, and this implies that they rarely require them to take diagnostic tests for the same. This is mainly because the early symptoms associated with the disease are portrayed as normal menstrual cycles by the younger women.
Bleeding after menopause is considered a symptom of endometrial cancer, but bleeding for the younger women might be a result of other factors like stress and hormonal imbalance. The health care system aims at ensuring that all women are sensitized about the need to enhance their consumption of preventive health care in tackling various forms of cancer, including endometrial cancer. While more women above 35 are aware of the risks they face in developing endometrial cancer, younger women are not acquainted with the information. This implies that there is a need to establish a campaign to educate younger women about the symptoms and risk factors of endometrial cancer. However, researchers have mainly concentrated on the symptoms and risk factors associated with older women. This has left gaps in understanding the onset of endometrial cancer in younger women.
Research Question
What are some of the common symptoms portrayed by younger women with endometrial cancer?
The main objective of the study will be to establish some of the common symptoms portrayed by women under the age of 35 years when they are diagnosed with endometrial cancer. Since the majority of the women in this age group are diagnosed with endometrial cancer at its later stages, self-accounts from the survivors can provide a clear insight of the various symptoms for which other younger women need to look out. Collecting data from the women will provide a clear insight of the pattern by which the symptoms are presented; hence, it will be easier to identify the women at a higher risk of developing endometrial cancer.
This information is missing in most studies on endometrial cancer because researchers have particularly concentrated on women above 35 years because they face a higher risk of developing endometrial cancer (Burleigh, Talhouk, Gilks, & McAlpine, 2015). By addressing the research question, younger women in the society will have a better chance of detecting early symptoms of endometrial cancer to ensure there is an enhancement of the survival rate of endometrial cancer among women below 35 years (Falcone et al., 2016). It is important to ensure that the current trend of having younger women being diagnosed with endometrial cancer at its late stages is eliminated.
Clinical Relevance
Various health policies and guidelines, including the Affordable Care Act, have emphasized on the enhancement of preventive health care for all diseases. The contemporary world has seen a significant increase in the number of women dying from cancer, mainly because of late diagnosis of the disorder. Endometrial cancer is the most prevalent type of cancer among women in the United States in the current types, and it is associated with a very high mortality rate (Burke et al., 2014). The proposed research aims at establishing the mortality rate of women in the under-35 bracket with respect to endometrial cancer, and to develop a clear picture of the pattern of symptoms as highlighted by survivors of endometrial cancer in this bracket.
This information will be instrumental in the development of a better health care approach when dealing with younger women with symptoms associated with the disease. The findings will particularly help caregivers to identify the women at a higher risk of developing endometrial cancer and also enhance their ability to diagnose the younger women with the disease at an earlier stage (Barry, Azizia, & Hardiman, 2014). This will ultimately enhance the survival rate of the women because it will increase the effectiveness of the management approaches for the disorder. This approach will enhance the health outcomes of women in the United States and other parts of the world.
Research Design
The proposed study will apply a qualitative and quantitative approach to address the research question. The quantitative part will entail the collection of data from various health care facilities to develop a report on the mortality rate associated with endometrial cancer for women below 35 years. This will highlight the severity of the issue addressed in the study. The qualitative approach will focus on revealing the pattern of symptoms reported by the survivors of endometrial cancer below 35 years. The researcher will contact various hospitals to develop a database of survivors of endometrial cancer, and to contact them for interviews. The research will target 250 survivors of endometrial cancer. The collection of qualitative data will be the development of an interview with the respective participants.
The interview will contain questions directed toward revealing the pattern of symptoms experienced by the respective women before the diagnosis of the disorder, and the stages of cancer at diagnosis. The collected data will be analyzed by creating tables based on the symptoms portrayed at different stages of diagnosis. The comparison of the symptoms highlighted by the participants will provide a clear pattern of related symptoms and severity. This information will be drafted in a final report that may be used by health care providers to identify trends of symptoms among women below 35 years with a high risk of developing endometrial cancer. Since the contemporary health care system is dependent on evidence-based care, this study will provide a starting point to increase evidence associated with women under 35 years and the prevailing symptoms of the development of endometrial cancer.
Discussion
The area of endometrial cancer cases among women younger than 35 years has been understudied, and this has led to major gaps in the development of preventive and diagnostic information for this bracket of women (Pronin, Novikova, Andreeva, & Novikova, 2015). It is imperative to develop the knowledge intended in this study to enhance the health outcomes of the younger women. Current health records indicate that the mortality rate of women diagnosed with endometrial cancer is extremely high because most of the victims are diagnosed at a late stage of cancer development (Segev et al., 2013). The proposed research will be instrumental in diverting the focus of future researchers to a more comprehensive approach when developing preventive measures for endometrial cancer. The study will also provide younger women with a clear insight of the symptoms and the associated patterns that they need to pick out to get tested for endometrial cancer.
References
Barry, J. A., Azizia, M. M., & Hardiman, P. J. (2014). Risk of endometrial, ovarian and breast cancer in women with polycystic ovary syndrome: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Human reproduction update, 20(5), 748-758.
Burke, W. M., Orr, J., Leitao, M., Salom, E., Gehrig, P., Olawaiye, A. B., & SGO Clinical Practice Endometrial Cancer Working Group. (2014). Endometrial cancer: a review and current management strategies: part II. Gynecologic oncology, 134(2), 393-402.
Burleigh, A., Talhouk, A., Gilks, C. B., & McAlpine, J. N. (2015). Clinical and pathological characterization of endometrial cancer in young women: identification of a cohort without classical risk factors. Gynecologic oncology, 138(1), 141-146.
Falcone, F., Laurelli, G., Gallo, M., Scala, F., Losito, S., Granata, V., & Greggi, S. (2016). 378. Long-term oncologic and reproductive outcomes in young women with early endometrial cancer conservatively treated: An update from an institutional prospective study. European Journal of Surgical Oncology, 42(9), S157-S158.
Pronin, S. M., Novikova, O. V., Andreeva, J. Y., & Novikova, E. G. (2015). Fertility-sparing treatment of early endometrial cancer and complex atypical hyperplasia in young women of childbearing potential. International Journal of Gynecological Cancer, 25(6), 1010-1014.
Segev, Y., Iqbal, J., Lubinski, J., Gronwald, J., Lynch, H. T., Moller, P., & Foulkes, W. D. (2013). The incidence of endometrial cancer in women with BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations: an international prospective cohort study. Gynecologic oncology, 130(1), 127-131.