A gynecologic oncologist will help you set your course of treatment on the right path.
- Gynecologic oncologists are specifically trained to treat cancers that affect a woman's reproductive organs. This includes ovarian cancer.
- Typically, ovarian cancer patients will receive a combination of chemotherapy and surgery. A gynecologic oncologist can help you decide the order of treatment that’s best for you.
- The aim of ovarian cancer surgery is to try to remove all visible disease.
Gynecologic cancers affect a woman's reproductive organs, including the cervix, uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, vagina, and vulva. A
gynecologic oncologist is a physician first trained in obstetrics and gynecology, who has an additional three to four years of training in gynecologic cancers including advanced surgery techniques and chemotherapy administration. Gynecologic oncology specialists use these skills to treat cancers of the female reproductive system.
"When you have a new diagnosis of ovarian cancer or a suspected diagnosis, it's my strong recommendation that you at least have a consultation with a gynecologic oncologist. That's the most important thing you can do to advocate for yourself," says Dr. Sharon Robertson, gynecologic oncologist with Indiana University Health.
Read More Think of a gynecologic oncologist as the captain of your ovarian cancer care team. "Of course we certainly, and frequently, work with our medical oncology colleagues, but gynecologic oncologists are specially trained to deal with ovarian cancer, and at least a one-time consultation can help set your treatment course on the right path." In general, ovarian cancer patients will receive a combination of chemotherapy and surgery. However the order is personalized depending on the patient. To decide whether chemotherapy or surgery should come first "requires a full physical examination and often getting imaging studies such as CT scans to understand if the disease has spread, and if it has, how far has it spread." Oncologists use this information to help them better understand whether chemotherapy might make surgery more effective, or if surgery first might be a better option. Gynecologic oncologists all describe the goal of surgery as trying to remove all visible cancer. "In general, when we're thinking about surgery, we are aiming for [that] goal. There are cases when this is possible from [the outset] and there are cases where we're unlikely to achieve that goal without first shrinking some of those cancerous tumors down with chemotherapy.”
There's almost no instance in which a patient would have surgery without chemo at some point during their treatment, Robertson says. Chemotherapy is almost certainly going to be part of the combination. But the decision on number of cycles and the order of treatment is going to be individualized “hopefully in a conversation between a patient and a gynecologic oncologist.”
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Dr. Sharon Robertson is a gynecologic oncologist with Indiana University Health. Read More
