Ruling out ovarian cancer - why has my gynaecology appointment been changed?

[Jencs1983]

Hi to everyone reading this.

I'll try to cut a long story short.

I have an ovarian cyst - 15cm x 10cm. It was picked up on an ultrasound scan.

My GP sent me to get the CA125 test which came back normal, and she also referred me to Gynaecology because the cyst is so large.

Gynaecology got back to me not long after with an appointment for September 21st. Before attending that appointment, they told me I needed a pelvic MRI and further blood tests (they check for tumour markers). I've done both but not received the results yet.

About an hour after doing the blood tests (two days ago) which were marked as "urgent", I checked my NHS Drdoctor app to see if my appointment was still listed, but I was shocked to see that the appointment had been postponed from September 21st to October 19th. I've heard nothing from Gynaecology about this. No letter, no phone call. It had definitely been changed after I'd done the blood tests, not before.

I was just wondering has anyone here had any experience of this? I have been so unbelievably stressed out about this cancer thing. My brain doesn't deal with health issues very well, so any knowledge of what is going on here would be gratefully accepted.

I'm in the Manchester area if this helps.

21st is a strike day.

Ahh I should watch the news more often!

Thanks for your reply.

I'm afraid I don't know what the CA125 test is but the fact that you've had a pelvic MRI and blood tests and actually got an appointment with gynaecology is a good sign.

My experience with NHS gynaecology is that it's slow. After 3 A&E visits last year, I had to chase a referral and had I continued with that NHS referral, my first appointment would've taken place exactly a year after my first A&E visit. I think it was pushed back about 6 times to that date as well. I ended up going private and getting diagnosed and treated for stage 4 endometriosis in the time it took the NHS to even send the appointment letter through. They wouldn't even do an ultrasound in A&E despite me asking for it and when I had it privately, it turned out to be an 8cm cyst. I hope if the NHS had found this, things would've a bit quicker from this point.

It sounds like it is just the strike day affecting your appointment and I really hope you get seen quickly for your own peace of mind and that everything turns out ok.

Bless you . I hope you’re as okay as you can be.
I had a routine ultrasound for something unrelated and it was discovered that I had masses near my ovaries . I then had tumour markers , MRI etc and then last week I had a partial hysterectomy.
It was all done very quickly. A matter of weeks.

Good luck.

Thanks all for your replies. To be honest with you, the NHS have acted so quickly for me. I know that some people are waiting months, even years. I've been very lucky, and I have no symptoms of cancer, so I'm probably fine.

I have a tendancy to overthink things.

My experience of being in this exact same situation about 10 years ago - huge cyst on left ovary but CA125 not elevated - is that yes the wheels ground slowly possibly over the space of a few weeks / months.

As there's no suggestion of cancer they don't have to put you on the 2WW emergency pathway. It's very distressing though and also probably extremely physically uncomfortable.

In my case, I was referred for laparoscopic investigation / removal of the cyst. It wasn't done urgently though, maybe waited a couple of months or so. I had to have an ultrasound scan the day before the surgery to update the info and in this scan it was discovered the cyst had 'disappeared', despite it had been there getting bigger over the space of several years.

I was baffled and the gynae explained that ovarian cysts do sometimes burst internally and then the matter / tissue is 'reabsorbed' into the body. I didn't even notice! But on this subject since your cyst is so large, please do look up the correct information on what signs and symptoms to be aware of in case it bursts and rarely it can cause infection and you'd need to go to A&E if feverish or such.

As already said, appointments are being cancelled and shuffled around all the time lately due to strikes and staff shortages.

I hope this will be resolved quickly for you :)

I was on the 2 week wait process for suspected ovarian cancer- cysts, bleeding and elevated ca125. Turned out that it meant every scan or blood test was 2 or 3 weeks apart, so whole stressful process took months, but at least it kept moving.