Ovarian cancer in women with prior hysterectomy.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the proportion of women with ovarian cancer treated at our institution who may have had their disease prevented if oophorectomy had been performed during prior hysterectomy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred twelve women with ovarian cancer treated at our institution were identified through records in our Gynecologic Oncology office. We identified 19 women (17%) who had undergone prior hysterectomy without bilateral oophorectomy (Group 1). We compared age at cancer diagnosis, stage of disease, and cell type between these women and the 93 without prior hysterectomy (Group 2).

RESULTS: The mean age at hysterectomy for women in Group 1 was 33.8+/-5.9 years (range 21-44 years). There were 7 women over the age of 35 years, 3 of whom were over the age of 40 years at time of hysterectomy. Overall, 17.0% of ovarian cancer cases theoretically could have been prevented if bilateral oophorectomy had been performed at the time of hysterectomy. However, this drops to only 2.7% if oophorectomy was limited to women over 40 years.

CONCLUSION: Women in our study who underwent prior hysterectomy did so at a relatively young age. This limited the impact prophylactic oophorectomy could have had on ovarian cancer prevention in our population.