The surgical removal of the ovaries has been widely adopted as a cancer-risk-reducing strategy for women with either BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. A new multicenter study led by researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) is the first prospective examination of the impact of this procedure in which BRCA2 mutation carriers were analyzed separately from BRCA1 mutation carriers. All previous studies evaluating this approach have only examined BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers together or have limited their analysis to BRCA1 mutation carriers alone. The findings of the new study, to be published in the March 2008 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, may have important implications for women comparing the risks and benefits of specific cancer-risk-reduction options.
