Transcript

PETER CAVE: The Prime Minister's wife Janette Howard has confirmed for the first time that she had cervical cancer nearly a decade ago and not breast cancer as many people had assumed.

Because she 's patron of the National Breast Cancer Centre, Mrs Howard said people often wrongly made the link and she thought it was time to clear the matter up.

Mrs Howard's revelation came just as a Federal Parliamentary Committee looks set to recommend the Government should do more to combat gynaecological cancers.

And with the spotlight so often on breast cancer a senate inquiry has heard evidence the high death from ovarian cancer has been largely ignored.

From Canberra Gillian Bradford reports.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: By the time most women with ovarian cancer are diagnosed the cancer is already well advanced.

Just 40 per cent will live out the next 5 years compared to a breast cancer survival rate of 80%.

Jane Harris from the National Ovarian Cancer Awareness Network says women just don�t know how to recognise the early signs.

JANE HARRIS: A lot of the symptoms mimic other things like bloating and pelvic pain and back pain and indigestion, but when you put them all together there is actually a story that is being told.

So we're asking women to listen to bodies and if they have those symptoms for more than a few weeks go and see doctor and insist to the best of their ability that they rule out ovarian cancer.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: It's breast cancer as the most common cancer in women that gets the lion�s share of publicity and research funding.

In fact because she is the patron of the National Breast Cancer Centre, many people assumed that�s what Janette Howard had battled in the mid 1990s.

Not so, she clarified at a cancer fundraiser this morning.

JANETTE HOWARD: I should perhaps take this opportunity to say I didn't have breast cancer, my cancer was cervical cancer.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: Mrs Howard's revelation will be welcomed by survivors of gynaecological cancers who've often struggled to draw attention to these diseases

Liberal Senator Jeannie Ferris, herself a survivor of ovarian cancer says cervical, uterine and vaginal cancers need to share the spotlight.

JEANNIE FERRIS: Breast cancer has done a fantastic job. The National Breast Cancer Centre has raised the profile, raised the funds. We now have in this country survival rates of over 80 per cent for breast cancer.

We want to do the same for gynaecological cancers we want to shine the light where there has been very little discussion.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: Senator Ferris is a member of the senate committee, which looks set to recommend that the Government should do more to combat gynaecological cancers.

At the moment, there is no early detection test for ovarian cancer but the experts have told the committee-that with a big injection of research money they could develop one within years.

JEANNIE FERRIS: It�s one of the rare times when there�s been unanimous views across all members of the committee and the response, the report that will come down on Thursday is a unanimous report which is wonderful.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: I take it again what everybody here is calling for is more funding to develop some early detection system?

JEANNIE FERRIS: Well it has to be because unfortunately the symptoms of ovarian cancer are vague and mixed and often by the time women are diagnosed it�s too late and that�s why the rates of survival are low.

What we want to do is develop a test like a mammogram and that will enable us to get an early warning test for women and the women of Australia deserve this.

GILLIAN BRADFORD: Senator Ferris' Liberal colleague Pat Farmer is also planning to run up Sydney�s Centre Point Tower to raise research money to look into these gynaecological cancers.

PAT FARMER: More than 750 women die every single year just through ovarian cancer alone, so if that was a road statistic, we�d be absolutely appalled by it and we�d be doing something about it so it�s important that we do something about this.

And it�s important that we all sort of keep our feet on the ground. We realise that we all need to do our bit; we need to make sure that the necessary funding goes into research.

PETER CAVE: Liberal MP Pat Farmer.