Here’s what to learn from tennis great Chris Evert’s battle with the disease

A New York Times story this week about tennis legend Chris Evert’s battle—twice—with ovarian cancer painted a simple and powerful picture: Fearing for her own risk after her sister died of the disease, Evert got tested, caught it early, as stage 1, and treated it successfully in 2022. And though it returned—stage 1 again, meaning it had not spread—she was able to catch that, too, and treat it again. Now the 69-year-old has been declared cancer-free a second time.
“As with her original diagnosis,” the story notes, “early testing was critical—a message Ms. Evert shares zealously.”

Except for just one problem: When it comes to ovarian cancer, there is no such thing as early testing.
“There is no approved screening. There is no method of early detection,” Sarah DeFeo, chief program officer at the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA), tells Fortune. “It’s a rare disease,” with a one-in-87 over-lifetime risk, “so it’s not something that happens as part of a well-woman checkup, whether with a gynecologist or regular internal medicine.”

That’s because, says Dr. Gillian Hanley, a member of OCRA’s scientific advisory committee and an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia, “all of the screening methods that have been tried have failed to decrease mortality rates to date, which is how we determine whether or not a screening method is effective.”
While there are some standard ways of surveilling for ovarian cancer if it is suspected—including a CA-125 blood test that could possibly indicate tumor markers and a transvaginal ultrasound that could help identify masses—they are imprecise. Plus, they are not indicated or available to women in the absence of either symptoms—which tend to only reveal themselves once the cancer has progressed significantly—or a high-risk factor, meaning the patient has already tested positive for carrying genetic markers that significantly raise the possibility of getting ovarian cancer.

“If you’re just a regular, average-risk person walking around in the world, a doctor may be like, ‘[a routine scan is] not medically indicated. There’s no need for that… There’s no evidence to suggest that ultrasounds are effective,’” says DeFeo. “So that’s not something that is recommended. It’s not neutral— it’s like, ‘No, don’t do it.’”

Instead, what women should consider, she says, is getting tested for genetic markers. It’s something Evert has talked about previously—having tested positive for the BRCA-1 gene after her sister’s death, then undergoing a preventative hysterectomy with removal of her ovaries and fallopian tubes. It was only then, through the pathology report, that she learned she had stage 1 ovarian cancer (which returned, even after the surgery, due to the fact that microscopic cancer cells can sometimes remain in the abdomen).
None of those details were mentioned in the most recent New York Times article—but they are actually the most vital, says DeFeo.
“She has talked a lot about getting tested early, but to me, the real story is about the importance of knowing your risk and about risk management,” she says. “I think that that’s the important takeaway from her story.”