Dr John Schorge Discusses Prevention Methods in Ovarian Cancer

John Schorge, MD, associate editor of The Green Journal, and Gynecologic Oncologist at Tufts Medical Center, discusses different prevention methods in ovarian cancer.

Transcript

What has your research shown about different methods to prevent ovarian cancer?

[My] presentation [was] about ovary cancer and the current updates. It is the case that ovary cancer happens in about 1 and 70 women in their lifetime. There's people that are at higher genetic risk for that, but really it's been a disappointing number of decades trying to identify a screening test. So, part of the presentation is just kind of presenting the data that's out there, showing that it's not all that helpful.

There are some methods of preventing ovarian cancer such as removal of the ovary, it's called prophylactic surgery to reduce the risk. However, that comes with menopausal— early menopause and other health consequences. What has been more recently shown is that many of these "ovarian cancers" actually start in the tube, and the tube has no function other than allowing pregnancy.

So, what has tilted in the last couple of years— and the ACOG practice bulletins sort of magnify– the recommendation to remove the tube at the time of GYN surgery or instead of tubal ligation. We think that that is one of the more effective ways– and easy ways– of decreasing ovarian cancer in the United States.