Why Remove Ovaries Before Ovarian Cancer Develops?
According to recent studies, women who have inherited a mutation in one of the two genes known to predispose a woman to breast and ovarian cancer BRCA1 or BRCA2 have approximately a 10 to 40 percent risk of developing ovarian cancer during the course of their lives, as well as an increased risk for developing cancer of the fallopian tubes. In contrast, only about 1.4 percent of women in the general population develop ovarian cancer during their lifetime. (This translates to a 1 in 70 risk for women in the general population.) As with other cancers, ovarian cancer is easiest to treat if it is detected at an early stage. However, ovarian cancer has often spread to other parts of the body by the time it produces symptoms or is detected, making treatment difficult. In addition, screening for this type of cancer is both difficult and unreliable. Sometimes current methods fail to detect cancer when it’s present, and other times they identify something that appears to be a cancer when it’s no
