Hi,
Cancer incidence increases with increasing age, and hence it is not likely that any doctor will consider
cancer among the first things.
If you have back pain, at your age the investigation would look at your activities, symptoms below the area of
pain. And based on the presence of absence of anything else – would the subsequent tests be determined.
Poor appetite but apparent increase in abdominal girth does raise suspicion for fluid within the abdomen, if
there is a definite change in weight then this is more so. The ultrasound is indeed a first step. Whether this
represents cancer, there is too little evidence to say so. It is within the realm of possibility but not
probable. At the very least, the back pain may only be postural, an anatomic problem like mild scoliosis. The
pelvic pain may be benign problems with the endometrium (how are your menses anyway? any irregularities?) or
the more probable urinary tract infection. Your concerns are pretty valid, because there seems to be so many
symptoms that you would consider a single problem (and in this regard cancer is suspect because of how it can
metastasize and how it affects even appetite, but this is not unique for cancer. There are also slow growing
infections that do present with similar non-specific symptoms) – but the existence of multiple fairly common
problems may actually be more probable.
Unfortunately this is all I can say about this. If the pelvic ultrasound shows anything – it may only be
endometriosis. If there is a mass on the ovary, your age group would raise suspicion for germ cell tumors.
While these are cancer, they have a good chance for cure, so I think there is a lot to keep positive.
