According to a new study made by researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, adding a woman’s symptoms of abdominal bloating or discomfort to a blood test may help detect ovarian cancer in its early stage, thus increasing chances of survival.

Research has shown that when used alone the two methods each detected about 60 percent of women with early-stage ovarian cancer and 80 percent of those with late-stage disease.

The blood test used for detecting ovarian cancer is looking for CA 125, a protein that is often elevated in ovarian cancer. These tests might fail to give an accurate result, as CA 125 can sometimes be elevated in women who don’t have ovarian cancer.

For the study, M. Robyn Anderson, Ph.D., of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and colleagues examined 254 healthy women at high-risk for ovarian cancer because of family history and 75 women about to undergo surgery to remove an ovarian cancer.

The women were interviewed about their symptoms and gave a blood sample to have their levels of CA 125 checked. Symptoms that may suggest a woman is at risk of ovarian cancer include abdominal pain, a feeling of fullness after a small meal, having trouble eating, and abdominal bloating.

The study showed that the two methods used together detected almost 90 percent of the ovarian cancer, 80.6 percent of the early cancers, and 95.1 percent of the later-stage cancers.

Anderson said the two methods appear to work “complementary” being able “to identify women who would not be identified by a blood sample alone, and conversely would not be identified by symptoms alone.”

However, a 14 percent had symptoms and elevated levels of CA 125 but did not have ovarian cancer, Anderson reported. These women were given transvaginal ultrasound tests for follow-up.

According to the American Cancer Society, more than 21,000 women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer yearly and more than 15,000 women die from the disease each year. The bad news is that only 20 percent of ovarian cancers are caught in their earliest, potentially curable stages.

The findings of the study were published on Monday in the online version of the journal Cancer.