The Goal: Leave No Visible Sign of the Tumor
- Surgery is the main treatment for ovarian cancer.
- Surgery will normally involve a hysterectomy, which means removing the uterus, ovaries, tubes, and cervix. Sometimes, other organs are affected.
- Most women will go on to get chemotherapy following their surgery.
Typically, surgery for ovarian cancer involves a midline incision in the abdominal wall. Before proceeding doctors will make an assessment: can they remove almost all, or all the tumor completely? “If I open up a patient and see that that’s not going to be possible, we close them up and start with chemotherapy," Dr. Argenta says. Chemo before surgery, called neoadjuvant chemotherapy, can help shrink a tumor, making it easier to surgically remove.
Read More“Though ovarian cancer does form some balls of tumor, it has this tendency of coating other areas,” Dr. Argenta says. "A lot of times it’s sort of a sheer sheet of tumor, and we’ll have to shave that down as best as we can.” Removing as much of the tumor as possible is called debulking. Patients whose cancer has been optimally debulked have a better prognosis than those left with larger tumors after surgery. If surgery is successful, chemotherapy usually follows.
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