September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month

join with aacr to find better ways to prevent and treat ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer is a malignancy of the almond-shaped organs in the female reproductive system that produce eggs and certain hormones. It is the sixth leading cause of cancer death in women in the United States.

Ovarian cancer occurs in three types:

  • ovarian epithelial cancer;
  • ovarian germ cell tumors; and
  • ovarian borderline tumors. 

Ovarian epithelial cancer is closely related to cancers of the fallopian tubes (which deliver eggs from the ovaries to the uterus) and the peritoneum (which lines the abdominal wall and covers the abdominal organs), and all three cancers are diagnosed and treated in the same way.

Ovarian cancer may cause nonspecific symptoms, such as abdominal swelling or pain, or no symptoms at all. Further, no screening tests to date have been shown to decrease the rate of death from ovarian cancer. As a result, ovarian cancer often goes undetected until it has reached an advanced stage. The five-year relative survival rate is 52%.

About 1.1% of women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer at some point in their lifetimes, according the NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. It was estimated that approximately 21,010 women in the United States would receive a diagnosis of ovarian cancer and approximately 12,450 women would die from the disease in 2026.

Family history and inherited gene mutations such as BRCA1 and BRCA2 are among the risk factors for ovarian cancer. Other risk factors include include obesity, endometriosis, and the use of hormone replacement therapy.

One Woman’s Story

In 2019, Mary Catherine Riley was diagnosed with low-grade serous ovarian cancer, which is less aggressive than the high-grade form but has high likelihood of recurrence. After undergoing six rounds of chemotherapy, Mary showed no evidence of disease. But in 2023 the cancer returned. Her doctor recommended she join a clinical trial for two targeted drugs that later became known as avutometinib and defactinib. Within a year, she had a complete response. Today, Mary continues taking the medication, now available as an FDA-approved combination called Avmapki Fakzynja Co-pack, and she has no evidence of disease. Read her story in the AACR Cancer Progress Report 2025.

more on ovarian cancer

  • Learn more about how the combination treatment avutometinib and defactinib works and why it might be able to overcome ways that cancer cells try to resist treatment on Cancer Research Catalyst, the AACR’s official blog. Additionally, the post also looks at some of the advances being made that may help detect ovarian cancer earlier.
  • Over the past few decades, evidence has been accumulating that ovarian epithelial cancer may not start in the ovaries, but in the fimbriae at the far end of the fallopian tubes. In AACR’s Cancer Today magazine, editor-in-chief William G. Nelson, MD, PhD, DSc, FAACR, explains how women at high risk of ovarian cancer may elect to have their fallopian tubes and ovaries surgically removed, but two clinical trials, TUBA-WISP II and SOROCk, are testing whether women can lower their odds of ovarian cancer by just having their fallopian tubes removed, which would avoid the start of immediate menopause. 
  • Cancer Today reported on another study that suggests heated chemotherapy delivered to the abdominal cavity extends survival in advanced ovarian cancer.

How AACR Supports Ovarian Cancer Research 

Sponsoring Scientific Meetings

  • In September 2025, the AACR held the 7th Biennial Special Conference on Ovarian Cancer in Denver, Colorado. Among the presentations was one focused on how chronic stress reshapes the ovarian tumor microenvironment, drawing immune-suppressing cells called myeloid-derived suppressor cells into the tumor and the bone marrow while pushing T cells out. Read more about this study and the the relationship among chronic stress, depression, and disease progression in patients with ovarian cancer on Cancer Research Catalyst.

Supporting Research Grants

The AACR has recently awarded research grants to investigators pursuing promising research in ovarian and related cancers. 

  • In 2026, Dan-Avi Landau, MD, PhD, of Weill Cornell Medicine, and Peter Sorger, PhD, of Harvard Medical School, both received Mark Foundation-AACR-Lustgarten Foundation Early Detection Awards. These awards were established to accelerate advances in early detection for some of the world’s deadliest cancers, including ovarian cancer. Landau will explore how to solve the early detection challenge in ovarian cancer through liquid biopsy, while Sorger’s work involves the molecular profiling of ovarian cancer precursors.
  • In 2025, Melanie R. Rutkowski, PhD, of the University of Virginia, and Cecil Han, PhD, of Georgetown University, both received Victoria’s Secret Global Fund for Women’s Cancers Rising Innovator Grants, in Partnership with Pelotonia and AACR. Rutkowski is investigating why ovarian cancer resists immunotherapy and strategies to overcome this resistance. Han’s research is also exploring treatment resistance, but is focusing on targeting the signaling that lets high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma cells change their identity to survive treatment. 
  • In 2025, Anke Nijhuis, PhD, of the Imperial College London, and Heather Whitney, MS, PhD, of the University of Chicago, received Victoria’s Secret Global Fund for Women’s Cancers Career Development Awards, in Partnership with Pelotonia and AACR. Nijhuis is studying targeting RNA splicing—the process by which cells edit genetic instructions before using them—to improve therapies for ovarian high-grade serous carcinoma. Whitney is exploring using artificial intelligence to improve image-based tools for ovarian cancer detection and diagnosis.  

for more information

Please see our page on ovarian cancer for information on prevention, screening and treatment.