Risk-Reducing Salpingo-oophorectomy in Women with BRCA1 or BRCA2
The sad part about situations like this is that the women undergoing these surgeries (along with bilateral prophalactic mastectomy) were probably never informed that there are countless other ways to lower your risk of certain types of cancer that do not remove the potential target. It just seems absolutely crazy–in no way whatsoever does this change the underlying biochemical defect that led to the increased risk in the first place! A perfect example is the ApoE4 genotype. Five years ago these people were basically given a death sentence from either heart disease or Alzheimer’s. Now, with additional information, we realize that patients with this genotype just need increase antioxidant protection to bring their risk down. Hopefully these patients did not have their brain or heart removed…
NEJM — Abstracts: Kauff et al. 346 (21): 1609