WHEN Peter Vagn-Jensen first met his wife Lone at a banking conference their future looked certain. He ran his own shipping business, she was the chief executive of the Danish-UK Chamber of Commerce. Both were Danish, but living in London. Aged 33 and 28, they made a very attractive couple.

Just over a year later, Lone had ovarian cancer diagnosed. The bloating and abdominal pains that had been dismissed by her GP turned out to have been caused by a tumour already so large that her chances of survival were no more than 10 per cent. Peter was with Lone as she underwent immediate surgery at the Lister Hospital. “I remember her surgeon coming over to me afterwards, and knew by his face that it was not good. As he told me, I felt completely cool, as if I were in a business meeting. Then I phoned Lone’s parents in Denmark and I couldn’t speak. Until that point I would have considered myself one of the luckiest people in the world.”

He had planned to propose to Lone in Venice; instead, he did so in her hospital room, and they celebrated by waltzing with her drip feed trailing behind them. “She was the most positive person, like a beam of sunlight. Her attitude was ‘together we are going to beat this’.”

It was Peter and Lone’s desire to tackle ovarian cancer head-on that led to the setting up of the Eve Appeal. “When you have had our experience, you can do one of two things: run away, or face it. Once we talked to people, we couldn’t believe how much good we could do — we who were unknown and really insignificant.”

After surgery and chemotherapy, Lone made a remarkable recovery. “She had incredible inner strength. She beat all the statistics,” says Peter. Despite her initial prognosis when she first became ill in 1991, Lone remained completely well for more than eight years. She and Peter funded fellowships for the Gynaecological Cancer Research Fund and built up an impressive cross-section of supporters.

In 1999, with the help of an assisted conception, Peter and Lone had a son, Hector.

A year later, while expecting twins Casper and William, now 4, Lone’s cancer returned. She had more surgery, more chemotherapy, but the disease became increasingly difficult to treat. She died in September 2003, aged 42.

“Lone had the best surgeons, the newest most intelligent drugs and they were not able to save her life. But with the right research, they are going to be able to save others.”

A COMMON CANCER

AFTER breast, bowel and lung cancer, ovarian cancer is the most common form of the disease and accounts for 5 to 6 per cent of all cancer deaths in women. Unfortunately, because of the position of the tumours — and because the disease is most prevalent in postmenopausal women — there are rarely specific symptoms until the disease is well advanced. Where symptoms are present, they may manifest as abdominal pains, lower back pain, bloating and urinary frequency caused by pressure on the bladder. In 60 to 70 per cent of cases, by the time of diagnosis, the cancer is at Stage 3, ie, has reached the abdominal cavity. Treatment involves surgery to remove as much of the cancer as possible, then chemotherapy. Improvements in surgical techniques and chemotherapy drugs mean that the median life expectancy has risen from less than 12 months after diagnosis 20 years ago to more than three years today.

A DEADLY GENE IN THE FAMILY

SEVEN years ago Sarah Newman’s mother, Mary, died of ovarian cancer aged 55. But it was only in 2001, when Sarah’s elder sister Beth had the disease diagnosed, that Sarah, 34, began to wonder if a familial gene meant that she was also at risk.

Beth, who lives in Tampa, Florida, and is married with two children, 12 and 13, had the disease misdiagnosed for a year. Doctors have told her that she will not recover. They also advised that Sarah, a clinical trials administrator from Cambridge, be screened. Sarah’s GP organised a test for the tumour marker CA125. But when she went back a year later for a follow-up, a different GP initially refused to put her forward. Sarah insisted that she was monitored — and is glad she did.

The second test detected a cyst in her ovaries, which raised the possibility that she had developed the disease. In the summer of 2002 she had her ovaries and Fallopian tubes removed. “It wasn’t easy, but it was the right decision,” she says.

Women who have two close relatives with ovarian cancer have at least a 15 per cent chance of developing the disease. Sarah’s three other sisters are having ongoing screening for CA125.

To raise money for, or make a donation to the Eve Appeal, call 020-7380 65900 or visit www.eveappeal.org.uk