About theOvarian Cancer Research Foundation
About the OCRF
Established in 2000, the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF) is a not-for-profit organisation and Australia’s largest independent funder of ovarian cancer medical research. Its expertise ensures that the research funded will have the greatest impact on the largest number of women and girls, helping those living with ovarian cancer today, and saving lives tomorrow.
The OCRF galvanises community efforts to generate critical funds for research. OCRF funds are 100% raised by the Australian community: including Principal Partner Witchery and dedicated corporate partners as well as mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons and daughters, other family and friends, stepping up to raise urgently needed funds for this important cause. Guided by an International Scientific Advisory Committee and Consumer Representative Panel, OCRF funding targets four key areas: prevention, early detection, better treatments and managing recurrence.
The OCRF is a strong voice for collective action — advocating alongside others in the sector, its major partners, and the community, to improve outcomes for ovarian cancer patients now, and for future generations.
In 2024, the OCRF funded three new grants totalling $2.1 million to support Australian researchers investigating an early detection approach; a vaccine treatment option, and a drug combination treatment to target a rare subtype of ovarian cancer.
About Ovarian Cancer
Ovarian cancer continues to be one of the most devastating and least understood cancers affecting women, girls and people with ovaries.
Today alone, four Australian women will be diagnosed. That’s 1,815 per year. And with a five-year survival rate that’s under 50%, over 1,000 women die of the disease each year. It’s a distressing picture that has changed little over the past 30 years. Some of the reasons for this lie in the nature of the disease and how hard it is to diagnose:
- The symptoms of ovarian cancer are often vague. For many women, the only signs are cramps, bloating, feeling full or needing to urinate more often—all symptoms which accompany benign conditions that commonly affect women (find out more);
- Around 70% of women are diagnosed in the advanced stages, and devastatingly only around 29% of these women are expected to survive beyond five years;
- Invasive surgery is currently the only way of accurately diagnosing ovarian cancer;
- Many ovarian cancer patients discover that even if their treatment effectively gets rid of their cancer, there’s an 80% chance that it will come back; at which point it’s less likely to respond to therapy and patients are left with limited alternative treatment options.
These statistics highlight why innovative research is so urgently needed. We need to find an early detection test and discover better, more effective treatments that will help women survive their ovarian cancer diagnosis long term.
Shop the White Shirts
This year we introduce two styles, both crafted from a heavy-weight 100% organic cotton poplin fabrication and designed in-house. The OCRF Cropped Shirt re-imagines the classic white shirt with a relaxed, cropped length, while the OCRF Oversized Shirt brings an effortlessly cool aesthetic with its high-low hem and oversized proportions.
