Ovarian cancer being a relatively rare cancer, it is useless to screen the general female population as is done with the Pap smear for cancer of the cervix. So, the strategy is to screen within a population having a higher prevelance of ovarian cancer. Therefore, a first step is to determine a patient's risk of ovarian cancer. Then, one will screen only the high risk group. Here is a decision tree indicating the thought process: 

References:

1. Try this on line personal risk calculator for ovarian cancer HERE.

(posted 27 November 2010; latest addition 21 April 2011)