NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A large number of women with ovarian cancer in the US -- perhaps as many as 1 in 3 -- are not receiving appropriate surgical treatment, hints a review of 10,432 women with the disease.

Ovarian cancer is one of the deadliest malignancies to women, taking the lives of more than 14,000 women in the US each year. The disease is usually detected at an advanced stage and even when all of the cancer can be surgically removed, only 30 to 40 percent of women are alive at five years. The survival rate falls to 15 percent when residual disease remains after surgery.

In their analysis, Dr. Barbara A. Goff from the University of Washington, Seattle and colleagues found that only 67 percent of women received the recommended comprehensive surgical procedures.

Women at greatest risk for undertreatment were elderly (age over 70 years), African American or Hispanic, women with Medicaid insurance, and those with early versus advanced stage cancer.

Women treated by doctors who do not specialize in gynecologic cancers, by surgeons who perform few ovarian cancer surgeries, and at hospitals that perform fewer than 10 procedures per year were also less apt to receive recommended comprehensive surgical care.

"Because optimal surgery is associated with improved outcomes, when ovarian cancer is suspected, efforts should be made to send these women to high volume hospitals and surgeons," Goff noted in comments to Reuters Health.

"This would be an effective strategy to improve overall outcome for women with ovarian cancer," she added.