A GP has warned women to watch out for the silent signs of a deadly cancer that kills thousands each year. 

Ovarian cancer is notoriously hard to diagnose because symptoms can easily be mistaken for less serious problems. 

As a result, only one in five patients are diagnosed in the early stages, before the disease spreads to other parts of the body, when treatment is more likely to be successful. 

Of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer early, 93 per cent go on to survive for more than five years.

However, survival rates fall to just 13 per cent among those diagnosed in the later stages, when the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.

But family medic Dr Alex Missick, from online prescriber UK Meds, said women could help reduce their risk of a late stage diagnosis by watching out for little known signs of the disease. 

She said common symptoms of the condition include bloating or swelling of the abdomen; pelvic pain or discomfort; feeling full quickly when eating; and needing to urinate more, or more urgently.

However, she added there were six more unusual signs of ovarian cancer that women may not know to connect with the disease. 

One of these was pain during sex, with Dr Missick explaining this can potentially be a sign of a cancerous growth in the pelvis, as can swelling and pain in the legs. 

She also said extreme fatigue and changes in your bowel habit were potential signs of ovarian cancer which are also often attributed to other factors. 

Finally, Dr Missick said back pain and menstrual irregularities - both of which can be put down to old age and perimenopause - are also symptoms of the deadly condition. 

'Since these symptoms can overlap with less serious conditions, they can be easy to ignore,' she said. 

'If you experience any of these persistently and in tandem with more common symptoms, then it is worth seeking advice from your doctor or GP.' 

While any woman can get ovarian cancer certain factors can increase an individual woman's risk of developing the disease. 

These include age - with the risk of ovarian cancer rising as you get older - and a family history of the disease. 

Both the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes can both increase the risk of ovarian and breast cancer by more than 40 per cent and 29 per cent respectively. 

Endometriosis - a condition that causes uterine tissue to grow outside of the womb, causing painful periods and heavy bleeding - also increases the risk of ovarian cancer fourfold according to some estimates.

Finally, being overweight can also make you more likely to get ovarian cancer. 

Common treatment options for the disease include surgery to remove as much of the cancer as possible, chemotherapy to shrink the tumours and hormone therapy. 

In August last year, British researchers called for those with telltale signs of ovarian cancer to be fast-tracked for urgent investigations, after their studies revealed the symptoms can occur up to three years before diagnosis. 

University of Birmingham experts said many GPs were under the wrong impression that only women in the advanced stages of ovarian cancer show any symptoms.

But their research showed that fast-tracking patients with problems like bloating and abdominal cramps led to significantly earlier diagnoses, when patients are far more likely to survive more than five years.

The NHS urges women experiencing symptoms such as bloating, pain in the stomach area, a lack of appetite or feeling full quickly, an urgent need to urinate or needing to do so more often, to see their GP. 

Other potential signs of the disease listed by the health service include indigestion, constipation or diarrhoea, back pain, fatigue, losing weight without trying and bleeding from the vagina after the menopause. 

Around 7,500 women in the UK are diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year, roughly 21 every day.

Just over 4,000 women die from the condition annually, according to Cancer Research UK.