A new study from Baystate Medical Center found that one-third of gynecologists continue to recommend removal of healthy ovaries from women undergoing hysterectomies who haven’t yet entered menopause. This goes against recommendations of their own medical society, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which advises against ovary removal in pre-menopausal women undergoing hysterectomies who aren’t at increased risk of ovarian cancer.
Tag: ovarian cancer
Endometriosis: Does Surgery Lower Risk for Ovarian Cancer?
Endometriosis has been linked to ovarian cancer, especially the endometrioid and clear cell types. There are various theories about the origin of endometriosis. The retrograde menstruation theory is the most widely accepted, but endometriosis is also believed to be associated with chronic inflammation, which could serve as a link between endometriosis and cancer.
Ovarian Cancer Fall Sped Up as Hormone Use Dropped
Ovarian cancer rates in the U.S. began to decline faster in 2002 around the time many older women went off hormone replacement therapy, according to a new study.
Endometriosis: Surgery Lowers Ovarian Cancer Risk
A new study shows women who undergo surgical treatment for endometriosis have a lower risk of developing ovarian cancer. The Swedish research also found that hormonal treatments for endometriosis did not lower the risk.
Study Finds No Fertility Drug, Ovarian Cancer Link
Despite lingering concerns that using fertility drugs might raise a woman’s chances for later developing ovarian cancer, new research suggests the drugs don’t contribute any added risk.
Cancer gene mutation linked to earlier menopause
(Reuters Health) – Women carrying BRCA mutations tied to breast and ovarian cancer may hit menopause a few years earlier than other women, according to a new study.
Doctors already discuss with those women whether they want immediate surgery to remove their ovaries and breasts, or if they want to start a family first and hold off on ovary removal.
“Now they have an additional issue to deal with,” said Dr. Mitchell Rosen, who worked on the new study at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.
An estimated one in 600 U.S. women carries the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation.
Those mutations greatly increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, a woman’s chance of getting breast cancer at some point in her life increases from 12 to 60 percent with a BRCA mutation, and ovarian cancer from 1.4 percent to between 15 and 40 percent. Read full article.
Pap Test Could Help Find Cancers of Uterus and Ovaries
The Pap test, which has prevented countless deaths from cervical cancer, may eventually help to detect cancers of the uterus and ovaries as well, a new study suggests.
For the first time, researchers have found genetic material from uterine or ovarian cancers in Pap smears, meaning that it may become possible to detect three diseases with just one routine test.
But the research is early, years away from being used in medical practice, and there are caveats. The women studied were already known to havecancer, and while the Pap test found 100 percent of the uterine cancers, it detected only 41 percent of the ovarian cancers. And the approach has not yet been tried in women who appear healthy, to determine whether it can find early signs of uterine or ovarian cancer. Read full article.
Ovarian Cancer Screenings Not Effective, Panel Says
Tests commonly recommended to screen healthy women for ovarian cancer do more harm than good and should not be performed, a panel of medical experts said on Monday.
The screenings — blood tests for a substance linked to cancer andultrasound scans to examine the ovaries — do not lower the death rate from the disease, and they yield many false-positive results that lead to unnecessary operations with high complication rates, the panel said. Read full article.
Grandma Explains Breast Cancer Fertility Link
A University of Utah team found that mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene, which raise the risk of women having breast and ovarian cancer are also linked to greater fertility.
Height, BMI, Tied to Ovarian Cancer
A new analysis of published and unpublished studies concludes that risk for ovarian cancer is associated with increasing height. It also finds that among women who have never used hormone therapy for the menopause, the risk for developing the disease is also tied to increasing body mass index, BMI, a measure of obesity.