Nearly half of Americans unaware about their familys history with cancer heres what to know

Forty-eight percent of Americans are unfamiliar with their family’s cancer history, according to new research. A survey of 2,000 Americans conducted by Talker Research to highlight Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month found that 42% of women and 54% of men were unclear on many of their relatives’ medical history.Twenty-two percent of the 1,000 women surveyed felt confident they know who has or hasn’t had cancer in their family but were unsure of the actual type. A fifth of women surveyed (20%) didn’t know at all their family’s cancer history, and just 46% of the 1,000 women surveyed felt confident they were up to date fully with all their health checks,When asked to cite the reasons for not being up to date on health checks, anxiety and fear were the common responses with 30% of women who are not up to date naming this as their driving factor. Being too busy (24%), and feeling physically uncomfortable with the process 21% were also prominent reasons given for not being up to date on health checks.Gerard Ledesma, who sadly recently lost his wife to ovarian cancer, spoke about his experience: “The loss of a dearly beloved due to ovarian cancer is a very painful lesson to learn about how deadly this type of cancer can be.My son and I are grateful for the opportunity to have cared for her as she fought this dreaded disease.

Gina showed courage and faith that she would recover as we did, but her chances of survival were stacked up against her due to the late and advanced stage of diagnosis. “Since there is no cure for any late stage and advanced diagnosis for Ovarian cancer or any form of cancer, the only options are prevention and early detection through heightened awareness and education.   “The feeling of hopelessness seeing your precious and dearly beloved suffer, and being powerless to do anything is the most unimaginably painful suffering we do not want anyone else to ever have to go through.“To honor Gina and countless others who have succumb...