The Ultimate Guide to Ovarian Cancer

Twenty-five thousand American women will get ovarian cancer this year. No screening test exists for this disease, and the symptoms are often vague and mistaken for other illnesses. This cancer is almost always diagnosed in advanced stages, thus requiring extensive surgery and heavy doses of chemotherapy. The recurrence rate is close to 80%, which means most ovarian cancer patients will need additional chemotherapy and sometimes more surgery. 

Benedict B. Benigno, M.D., is a board certified gynecologic oncologist and the founder and chief executive officer of the Ovarian Cancer Institute.  He currently serves as principal investigator for numerous clinical trials for ovarian cancer and has authored many scientific articles in peer review journals. He is the director of gynecologic oncology as well as the director of Research at Northside Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia.

As a young surgeon he was appointed visiting professor at the University Medical School in Saigon, South Vietnam, where he spent three years during the war setting up a residency training program in obstetrics and gynecology. He then became a professor in the department of gynecology and obstetrics at the Emory University School of Medicine, where he served as director of Gynecologic Oncology. He subsequently founded University Gynecologic Oncology and serves as its president. It is a practice composed of four board-certified gynecologic oncologists based at Northside Hospital.

He is married and has three children.