In Spain, some 3,300 cases of ovarian cancer are diagnosed each year, which represents 5.1% of cancers among women. But to avoid cases, experts recommend taking a drastic decisionindicated for women who have already decided not to have more children.
The Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance, a New York-based nongovernmental organization, recommends these women undergo to the removal of the fallopian tubes.
The removal of a woman’s fallopian tubes, also known as a salpingectomy, is usually performed as a form of permanent birth control, as well as to treat conditions such as an ectopic pregnancy or endometriosis.
The Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance has published updated guidance, encouraging women who have finished having children and are already “undergoing pelvic surgery” for another condition to have the fallopian tubes removed as a protective measure against ovarian cancer.
“Since the fallopian tube is the source of most high-grade serous cancers, removal of the fallopian tubes has been shown to drastically reduces the risk of a subsequent diagnosis of ovarian cancer“, explains the organization and according to the Daily Mail.
The function of the fallopian tubes is carry an egg from the ovaries to the uterus when a woman becomes pregnant.
The speed of diagnosis
The suggestion to preventatively remove them to avoid ovarian cancer comes after a clinical trial found that, unlike other forms of cancer, the speed with which the disease is detected it is not directly related to your survival rate.
“In addition to finding that screening women at average risk does not reduce ovarian cancer mortality, the trial revealed that for many women identifying their cancer at Stage I or Stage II did not affect their mortality,” reveals the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance.
“Detecting it at an earlier stage was not enough to prevent them from dying from the disease and did not prolong their lives. Similarly and paradoxically, the same study showed that some women (albeit a minority of women) diagnosed with at a late stage they improved“says the report.
‘Their late-stage diagnosis did not doom them to a poor prognosis, because there was something about their cancer that was less aggressive, and your positive result would have occurred whether it was diagnosed earlier or later,” he continues.
“It is clear that for early detection to dramatically improve outcomes, new, as yet undiscovered methods will need to be developed so that cancer can be discovered much sooner in those with more aggressive ovarian cancer“adds the report.