SUNRISE, Fla. – Uterine cancer is on the rise, but survival rates are not.
The American Cancer Society estimates the disease will take the lives of over 13 thousand women in the U.S. this year.
The question is: what may be driving this deadly trend.
42-year-old Valorie Quarengna always had irregular periods but in September of 2022 she became worried.
“I had gotten my period like normal, and it just didn’t stop. It didn’t last a week. It lasted over a month,” she said.
Quarengna was ultimately diagnosed with uterine cancer which data shows is now the deadliest gynecological cancer, surpassing ovarian cancer.
“Uterine cancer kind of falls into a few different categories but ultimately it is cancer of either the uterine body, or the muscle of the uterus or also cancer of the lining of the uterus,” said Dr. Jonathan Black with the Center for Gynecologic Oncology in Miramar, Fla.
He said one of the key warning signs is abnormal bleeding, which may be written off depending on the woman’s age.
“And that’s why these cancers in these patients that have been going on for so long are diagnosed that have been going are diagnosed at later stages,” Black said.
He said improving your diet, exercising and maintaining a healthy weight can reduce some of the known risk factors.
“Certainly, there are many factors involved in uterine cancer, some of those are exposures to certain materials, some of those are the result of too much fat production in the body, other factors are genetic factors so there’s a variety risk factors and there’s factors we don’t know as well that contribute to the development of uterine cancer,” Black said.
Quarengna underwent a full hysterectomy, radiation and chemotherapy and went into remission at the beginning of this year.
“Hearing the words remission was probably one of the best things you could ever hear so that was definitely a bright detail in this whole thing,” she said.
According to the American Cancer Society, uterine cancer is the only cancer for which survival rates have fallen in the past four decades.