Discuss your risk with a medical provider
If you are at higher risk, please discuss risk-reduction strategies and surveillance monitoring with your medical provider. Depending on your reproductive stage in life, you may want to consider some of these options:
- Oral contraceptive use for a period of five years can reduce your risk by 50%
- Intrauterine devices (IUDs) can reduce your risk by up to 32%
- Child-bearing and having a full-term pregnancy by age 25
- Breastfeeding your newborns
- Active surveillance monitoring (see detection tests)
- Preventive surgery: salpingectomy (fallopian tube removal), oophorectomy (removal of the ovaries), hysterectomy (removal of the uterus and/or other reproductive organs)
Recent scientific findings indicate that almost 90% of ovarian cancers originate in the Fallopian tubes. The American College of Obstetricians/Gynecologists recommends that all women undergoing pelvic or abdominal surgery should be offered the option to utilize preventive surgery to reduce their risk of ovarian cancer.
