Ovarian Cancer Screening of The Future

Most women harboring an ovarian cancer will not recognize the fact that a cancer is developing in their ovary. Eventually the cancer becomes more advanced, symptoms may then be pronounced and then the disease is recognized. Some women are taught to recognize signs of ovarian cancer because they are at greater risk of developing ovarian tumors. Women with BRCA 1 or 2 mutations, those with strong family history of breast or ovarian cancers, women who have never had children, women who have never breastfed, and women who have spent greater portions of their life ovulating because they never used birth control pills are all a bit more likely to get ovarian cancer. These women have been targeted for more careful watching in some studies looking at ways to diagnose ovarian cancer early. If effective screening could be performed, we can identify who these women are who have an ovarian cancer at an earlier stage when it is much more treatable. A screening test is a test for women with no symptoms at all. A study from the University of Kentucky Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial, which has been underway since 1987, studied women over 25 with family history of ovarian cancer and a personal history of cysts, BUT ALSO women over the age of 50 who had NO SYMPTOMS were targeted for ovarian cancer screening. They had a plan to check out any ovarian cysts seen on ultrasound that persisted for over 6 weeks with blood tests, sophisticated color flow ultrasound; and they had a definite plan on doing surgery if there was suspicion of cancer. If a woman has a cyst she has about 7% chance that this cyst is cancerous if she hasn't gone through menopause, that number rises to about 30% if she is menopausal. With just doing ultrasound screening in patients who have symptoms or risk we only find about 15% of the cancers in stage I, the most treatable stage. The good news is that with their plan, almost half (47%) of all tumors were found to be in stage I. Not only that, but in this Kentucky trial women were much more likely to survive from ovarian cancer, if they had been screened with the ultrasound test. It is beginning to look like this may indeed develop into a good strategy for women. Now the authors are still worried that they have too healthy of a group of patients, and that in fact their statistics may not really support wide spread screening just yet. Currently their work is being additionally validated by the UK Collaborative Trial of Ovarian Cancer Screening. Those results won’t be ready until 2015, and we think, therefore, that there will be reasons to change how we care for women in the next few years. but one fact holds firm: if you have unexplained or persistent symptoms like abdominal pain or bloating, please see your gyno for evaluation.

Passing Your Uterine Lining, Menstrual Period Norms

Decidual Cast Periods can be fairly easy, passing some tissue at a time, or off can come the whole lining in one piece called a decidual cast. Generally the lining of the uterus is only 6-8 mm thick at the time of the menstrual period, and it is shed gradually, a few cells at a time. The decidual cast is when the entire lining passes spontaneously. It's not uncommon, but it usually both uncomfortable, and alarming to some. But us women are designed to have some sort of periods Or Not? We have to pass tissue each month. Or Not? Are they good for us? Or Not? Do we want them? Or Not? Is this something that is individual? Or Not? It's a complex topic that I will be discussing a lot over my time in this blog. So lets start with basics: How much do we bleed and what are we loosing, and just what was this that the patient passed? And another basic: track your periods, and the Women's Health Practice site http://www.womenshealthpractice.com/media/pdf/menstrual_chart.pdf you...

Post-Endometrial Ablation Syndrome

If you have had an endometrial ablation and have developed symptoms of pelvic pain you might have post endometrial ablation syndrome. What is post-endometrial ablation syndrome? It is a constellation of symptoms due to entrapped blood or tissue within a uterus that has previously undergone an endometrial ablation. We are able to diagnose this at Women's Health Practic e but occasionally other conditions are causing similar symptoms. Other complications of endometrial ablation include pregnancy, risks from pre-existing conditions such as a polyp or fibroid, an infection of the uterus, or a pregnancy. If you have had a tubal ligation then it is possible that the condition could be post-ablation tubal sterilization syndrome. The ablation procedure is designed to destroy all lining tissue, but in fact there is no way to confirm the completeness of the ablation. It is thought that either residual or regrowth of the tissue is producing the symptoms of post-endometrial ablation syndrom...

You Have an IUD: But a Positive Pregnancy Test

Fortunately IUD pregnancy failures are rare. But if you have an IUD for contraception, and you get a positive pregnancy test, you probably ask yourself, what next? Well, make your gyno appointment promptly, this is a condition that is not typically an emergency, but it can be and it’s not handled over the phone or on a blog, or through self diagnosis! That being said, some researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas decided to look back at over 4100 women who had IUDs and of those 42 cases who became pregnant in their institution, over about a year period of time, to help understand what these women could expect when they got to their gyno and what actually happened to their pregnancies. Accurate pregnancy diagnosis, pelvic examination, and pelvic ultrasound were the cornerstones of the evaluations. They had very specific ways they looked at their ultrasound to prove there was no pregnancy in the fallopian tube, or partially in the fallopian tube...

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