Can anyone help me out with this. I always read about cancer "in the last stages", and various numbers, but I can never find any generic time frame for them. With ovarian cancer, how many years are likely to have passed before the cancer is considered to be in its 'late stages'?

There isn't a specific time frame. It would depend on what organs were affected, the age of the woman, her reponse to different treatments, her emotional state (optimistic, happy - Pesimistic, morbid), and her overall health before having cancer. There are lots of stories of people with any kind of cancer living longer than the doctors say they should. Each case really is so specific to that situation. :angel:

What I meant was, the stages of cancer if left untreated? I hear so many stories about people who had cancer for five years and didn't even know. The reason I'm investigating this is because I've had symptoms of IBS for three years but no dr seems to want to give me tests, so nothing has been outruled, and I hear the symptoms of IBS can be similar to those of ovarian/colon cancer. I'm just trying to get some perspective.

You'd be dead or severely ill by now if you had ovarian cancer advanced enough to be causing you 3 years worth of symptoms.

Timber...soooo wrong! my grandma died of ovarian cancer...they found it too late. We took her to the doctor when she felt she couldn't eat...and now what five years

Hi Sharon:

So sorry to hear about your grandmother! Do you know how long it was from when she first experienced symptoms to when she was diagnosed with cancer? Had several years passed from when she first told you about her problems eating, for example, until the doctor told you she had cancer?

My mother showed symptoms of IBS and other colon issues, and she also had female pain for 2 years before it got so bad we ended up in the er, and when they found her cancer she was in the late stage of 3.