Sadie B. King, who was treated for uterine cancer last year, participates in a clinical trial called SUCCEED .

Dorthula Anderson is not the typical 76-year-old woman.

She started skiing in her 60s and has an award to show for her remarkable progress. In one season, she proudly explains, she went from a non-skier to the intermediate level.

And there are the whitewater rafting expeditions that she has gone on in her early 70s.

To say the least, Anderson is exuberant about life. So when she was diagnosed with uterine cancer — commonly referred to as endometrial cancer — last year, she handled it with bold determination.

No time for tears or worry. “I just wanted to know what could be done about it,” she said. “It was going to be whatever it was to be.” Full story

Young and old are vulnerable

For a moment, uterine cancer was the subject of national attention.

It required two years of legislative work, but in 2007 President George W. Bush signed into law the Gynecologic Cancer Education and Awareness Act of 2005, or “Johanna’s Law.”

Johanna’s Law was named after Johanna Silver Gordon, a former schoolteacher who did not recognize the symptoms of ovarian cancer and died from its complications.

But the national attention failed to generate research dollars. In fact, the opposite occurred for research of uterine, or endometrial cancer, the leading type of gynecological cancer. Full story