{"id":2071,"date":"2012-09-15T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-15T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2012-09-15T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-15T09:00:00","slug":"ovarian-cancer-gynecology-mammograms-gyn-doctors-norfolk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/ovarian-cancer-gynecology-mammograms-gyn-doctors-norfolk\/","title":{"rendered":"Ovarian Cancer Tests Ill-Advised for Some, Panel Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Gynecology Specialists note: The Virginian-Pilot featured a New York Times article by Denise Grady titled “Ovarian cancer tests ill-advised for some, panel says.” All of the GYN doctors at Gynecology Specialists agree with these findings. If you have questions about this issue, please call us at (757) 312-8221.<\/em><\/p>\n

What the panel found<\/h3>\n

The article reported that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of 16 medical experts, reaffirmed its recommendation against screening healthy, average-risk women for ovarian cancer. The screenings in question — blood tests for the CA-125 marker and ultrasound scans of the ovaries — do not lower the death rate from the disease, and they produce many false-positive results that can lead to unnecessary operations with high complication rates.<\/p>\n

The panel’s conclusion rested heavily on a large study of more than 78,000 women ages 55 to 74, half of whom were screened and half not, followed for 11 to 13 years. The death rate from ovarian cancer was the same in both groups — but nearly 10 percent of the screened women had false-positive results, more than a thousand of them underwent surgery that turned out to be unnecessary, and at least 15 percent of those surgical patients suffered a serious complication. To find a single case of ovarian cancer, 20 women had to undergo surgery.<\/p>\n

Importantly, the advice against testing applies only to healthy women at average risk — not to women with suspicious symptoms, and not to women at high risk because they carry certain genetic mutations or have a family history of the disease. Other medical groups, including the American Cancer Society and ACOG, had for years been discouraging routine ovarian cancer screening for the same reasons.<\/p>\n

Our takeaway for patients<\/h3>\n

If you are at average risk, routine ovarian cancer screening is more likely to harm than help. What does matter: know the warning signs (persistent bloating, pelvic or abdominal pain, difficulty eating, urinary urgency or frequency), keep up your annual well-woman exam, and tell your GYN doctor about any family history of ovarian or breast cancer so we can assess whether you fall into a higher-risk group where a different approach is warranted.<\/p>\n

If you have questions about ovarian cancer or other GYN issues, please contact our GYN clinic at (757) 312-8221. Our GYN doctors are here to help you.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Gynecology Specialists note: The Virginian-Pilot featured a New York Times article by Denise Grady titled “Ovarian cancer tests ill-advised for some, panel says.” All of the GYN doctors at Gynecology Specialists agree with these findings. If you have questions about this issue, please call us at (757) 312-8221. What the panel found The article […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ricardovidallon.com\/gyn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}