Women with PTSD more likely to develop ovarian cancer, suggests study

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest gynecologic cancer and the fifth most common cause of cancer-related deaths among women in the US

Women who exhibit many classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may be much more likely to develop ovarian cancer than their counterparts who don’t, a new study suggests.
 
For the study, researchers asked women to identify the most stressful event of their lives and report whether they experienced seven different symptoms of PTSD.
 
Women who suffered from six or seven PTSD symptoms were more than twice as likely to develop ovarian cancer as women who didn’t report any of these symptoms, the study found.
 
“We hypothesise that stress hormones directly affect cancer cells that may be