We talk a lot about the importance of collaborative care at the Oncofertility Consortium. Often cancer patients have a variety needs that require multiple specialists, thus the need to consult and collaborate to ensure the patient is receiving comprehensive care is pertinent. In a new article in the journal Familial Cancer entitled, “The Consequences of Risk Reducing Salpingo-Oophorectomy: The Case for a Coordinated Approach to Long-Term Follow Up Post Surgical Menopause,” the authors Carmel Pezaro, MD, Paul James, MD, Joanne McKinley, Mary Shanahan, Mary-Anne Young and Gillian Mitchell, MD argue that young women who have had risk reducing salpingo-oophorectomy (RRSO) need improved support services from their healthcare team in the long-term aftermath of this surgery.
First of all, let’s start by going over what salpingo-oophorectomy is for those of you who don’t know. Salpingo-oophorectomy is the removal of the ovary(ies) together with the fallopian tube(s). For young women with mutations in BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, an RRSO is often recommended as a preventative measure against the increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer prior to natural menopause. Up to this point, no long-term studies have been done on pre-menopausal women who have undergone RRSO focusing on the wider physical consequences of the surgery (aside from sexual dysfunction) such as the severity of menopause symptoms and risk factors like osteoporosis.
The significance of menopause systems in RRSO patients is important to investigate due to research suggesting that surgical menopause “may result in a more rapid decrease in bone density when compared to natural menopause, it’s association with cognitive impairment or dementia, and an increased risk of cardiovascular mortality.” Often health care providers emphasize the importance of RRSO in preventative cancer care, but it is unclear whether or not the long-term consequences of this surgery and the management of those symptoms are addressed. Furthermore, symptom severity was markedly higher in women who were less than 50 years old prior to surgery regardless of their menopause status. The authors hypothesize that one reason for this may be that younger women are more affected by the sexual consequences of menopause because they are engaged in a greater amount of sexual activity.
The results of this study demonstrate that women are not receiving appropriate structured support for their symptoms post surgery. The authors suggest that because their follow-up care crosses many disciplines, it falls between the cracks as providers assume someone else is taking care of it, therefore the medical team providing the long-term genetic follow-up should also be reasonable for coordinating the long-term post RRSO management in conjunction with general practitioners. Read the article, “The Consequences of Risk Reducing Salpingo-Oophorectomy: The Case for a Coordinated Approach to Long-Term Follow Up Post Surgical Menopause.”