A student who claims her ‘melon-sized’ cancerous tumour was dismissed by doctors as a UTI, says it was left so long it grew hair and teeth.
Mia Robins was finishing her first year of university when she found herself crawling on her bathroom floor in pain.
The 21-year-old from Liverpool noticed other symptoms including fatigue, weight loss and hair loss.
However, the biomedical science student said doctors dismissed these ailments with a number of diagnoses including alopecia, anaemia and a urine infection.
But Ms Robbins’ health continued to decline and an ultrasound in June 2022 confirmed the student had ovarian cancer.
Mia Robins was finishing her first year of university when she found herself crawling on her bathroom floor in pain
the biomedical science student said doctors dismissed these ailments with a number of diagnoses including alopecia, anaemia and a urine infection
Ms Robins, who was 19 at the time, underwent emergency surgery to remove the growing tumour which doctors said was the size of a honeydew melon and filled with hair and teeth.
Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer in the UK.
The disease kills around 11 women every day in Britain, on average, or 4,000 a year.
It also kills three times as many women in the US every year, figures show.
It is often diagnosed late because symptoms are vague and can include indigestion, pelvic or abdominal pain, loss of appetite, constipation, and needing to urinate more often.
Ovarian cancer is a rare form of the disease that develops in the ovaries, the female organs that produce eggs. It is often called a ‘silent killer’, as symptoms don’t present until late stages of the disease.
Mia Robins underwent emergency surgery to remove the growing tumour which doctors said was the size of a honeydew melon and filled with hair and teeth (left). She also noticed symptoms including fatigue, weight loss and hair loss (right)
Around 93 per cent of women diagnosed live five years or more if it’s spotted at the earliest stage, compared with just 13 per cent diagnosed at stage four.
Stage three means the cancer has spread outside the pelvis into the abdominal cavity or to lymph nodes.
About a fifth of women with ovarian cancer are also diagnosed in A&E, often when it is too late for any treatment.
Ms Robins said the pain started after she had her appendix removed in December 2021.
‘I would wake up in pain like I needed the toilet straight away. I felt a lot of pressure and was dying to go to the bathroom but it would go away as soon as I went to the toilet,’ she said.
She added: ‘I was also sleeping for like 12 or 13 hours a day and kept sleeping in for work. I wasn’t really eating either. I lost about half a stone and dropped a dress size. Then my hair started falling out. I noticed there was a bald spot at the back of my head the size of my palm.’
‘I had a massive bulge in my stomach — I looked about four or five months pregnant.’
Ms Robins went to A&E once again in June 2022 where further tests revealed that the student had stage one ovarian cancer
Ms Robns went to A&E several times and constantly visited her GP as her symptoms persisted
She went to A&E twice in three weeks and claims she had five GP appointments across six months due to her symptoms.
She said: ‘I was told lots of things like I might have celiac, anemia, alopecia and a UTI. I told them in A&E that I was crawling to the bathroom in pain and they gave me antibiotics for a UTI but I knew it wasn’t that.
‘I took the antibiotics and it didn’t help at all. I remember thinking I might have cancer and my friend said “don’t be silly”.’
Ms Robins went to A&E once again in June 2022 where further tests revealed that the student had stage one ovarian cancer.
Medical staff told her the tumour was the size of a melon and she would need to undergo emergency surgery immediately.
Medical staff told her the tumour was the size of a melon and she would need to undergo emergency surgery immediately
Ms Robins said: ‘They’d caught it early but it was absolutely massive. I had to have emergency surgery because it was the size of a honeydew melon — it was massive and growing. I was in such pain because it was directly above my bladder causing me pain.
‘The fact they told me it was the earliest stage and hadn’t affected any other organ was a relief but of course I was upset. It all felt very overwhelming.
‘I was a bit angry my symptoms had been dismissed. I feel like if there’d be an ultrasound earlier, it would’ve been caught. It took six months to get diagnosed.
‘I was reassured that I would be fine and persistent in going back to my normal routine.
‘The surgery was successful but they had to remove my right ovary, my fallopian tube and part of my abdomen and some lymphnodes.
‘They told me the tumour itself had teeth and hair in it which is apparently normal with quite a big tumour. It had such a good blood supply, it was able to grow teeth and hair.’
In August, she was given the all-clear and has to undergo regular scans to ensure the cancer doesn’t return
Despite removing the tumour, Ms Robins’ cancer returned in February 2023 and she underwent a three-month course of chemotherapy.
In August, she was given the all-clear and has to undergo regular scans to ensure the cancer doesn’t return.
She said: ‘It was nice to know I was done with it now and could get back to my normal life. This is the first summer that I haven’t had to be in hospital for two years. I know I’ll be on edge with it for the rest of my life.
‘I felt a bit ignored that my symptoms were dismissed. I was experiencing a lot of pain and knew it wasn’t a UTI. I didn’t feel believed. I felt ignored for six months.
‘I say to other people, always challenge medical staff if you feel something is wrong. I could’ve died if I hadn’t kept going to A&E. My tumour would’ve kept growing and I could’ve died.’
WHY OVARIAN CANCER IS CALLED A ‘SILENT KILLER’
About 80 percent of ovarian cancer cases are diagnosed in the advanced stages of the disease.
At the time of diagnosis, 60 percent of ovarian cancers will have already spread to other parts of the body, bringing the five-year survival rate down to 30 percent from 90 percent in the earliest stage.
It’s diagnosed so late because of its location in the pelvis, according to Dr Ronny Drapkin, an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who’s been studying the disease for more than two decades.
‘The pelvis is like a bowl, so a tumor there can grow quite large before it actually becomes noticeable,’ Dr Drapkin told MailOnline.
The first symptoms to arise with ovarian cancer are gastrointestinal because tumors can start to press upward.
When a patient complains of gastrointestinal discomfort, doctors are more likely to focus on diet change and other causes than suggest an ovarian cancer screening.
Dr Drapkin said it’s usually not until after a patient endures persistent gastrointestinal symptoms that they will receive a screening that reveals the cancer.
‘Ovarian cancer is often said to be a silent killer because it doesn’t have early symptoms, when in fact it does have symptoms, they’re just very general and could be caused by other things,’ he said.
‘One of the things I tell women is that nobody knows your body as well as you do. If you feel something isn’t right, something’s probably not right.’
