Along with Talk Peach Gynaecological Foundation’s Tash Crosby, the Dunedin woman presented a petition with more than 7000 signatures to Parliament this week in a call for better outcomes for women with ovarian cancer.
The steps of Parliament were covered in 180 white crosses to represent the lives lost last year as the two women called for the Government to help raise awareness and fund research to reduce the death toll from New Zealand’s least survivable women’s cancer.
Ms Ludemann was diagnosed with low-grade serious ovarian cancer in 2017, and doctors gave her five to 15 years to live based on available treatments.
Through the charity she founded she learnt about 90% of women could not name a single symptom of ovarian cancer before their diagnosis.
And most women experienced significant difficulties in accessing the blood test and ultrasound required to find their cancer, she said.
Once diagnosed, women faced survival rates 5% worse than Australians, who had access to more funded treatments and clinical trials.
Survival rates for ovarian cancer were less than half that of breast and prostate cancer.
The situation was unlikely to improve unless New Zealand started funding research, Ms Ludemann said.
