What is SLOCA?
St. Louis Ovarian Cancer Awareness is a small but mighty group of women and men who are determined to raise the profile of ovarian cancer in our community.
Simply stated, we work to increase awareness of ovarian cancer, to create a place where patients and survivors can find support, and to fund important research.
We are patients, survivors, caregivers, surviving family members and medical professionals. We have no paid staff, no office, no six-figure budgets. What we have are volunteers whose passion drives them to speak out about this disease at every opportunity and to raise money and secure grants.
Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of gynecologic cancers. Each year, nearly 22,000 women are diagnosed with the disease; each year, nearly 15,000 will die of it.
Those statistics are dismal because there is no early screening test and the symptoms are not well-known. Three out of four patients are diagnosed in the late stages. At that point, the disease has a 70 to 90 percent rate of recurrence. It’s very difficult to cure; the best that many patients can hope for is to manage it as a chronic disease.
We must do better. By educating women, their loved ones and those in the medical profession, we hope to shift diagnosis to the early stages of the disease. SLOCA is doing that work. Each year, we speak to scores of medical students, resident doctors and nurse-practitioner students in the St. Louis area. We staff booths at the Working Women’s Survival Show, health fairs and public events such as Cardinal pep rallies. We speak to women’s groups; we publish stories in area newspapers and online sites; and we advertise selectively.
We need your help to be more effective. We need corporate and foundation grants. We need marketing expertise. We need to tell our stories in employee lunchrooms and to parent-teacher organizations.
We need to put this disease in its place. Now.
