Highlights
- •The bilateral salpingectomy (BS) reduces the risk of ovarian cancer (OC) by 49%.
- •The BS is an effective measure to reduce OC risk in the general population.
- •The BS could avoid the development of a consecutive tubal pathology.
- •The BS did not have any short-term deleterious effects on ovarian reserve.
- •The BS should be considered for women requiring hysterectomy with benign indications.
Abstract
Background
The results of recent studies have suggested that high-grade serous ovarian cancer predominantly
arises within the fallopian tubes. The reduction of ovarian cancer (OC) risk in women
with a history of bilateral salpingectomy (BS) has been reported. We performed a meta-analysis
to determine the impact of BS in preventing OC in the general population.
Methods
We searched the PubMed, MEDLINE, and EMBASE databases and CENTRAL in the Cochrane
Library for all English-language articles published up to January 2015, using the
key words ‘ovarian cancer’ and ‘bilateral salpingectomy.’ Odds ratios (ORs) and their
95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated by standard meta-analysis techniques.
Results
Of the 77 studies retrieved, three were included in this meta-analysis, including
one cohort study and two population-based case-control studies with 3509 patients
who underwent BS and 5,655,702 controls who did not undergo salpingectomy. Over the
combined study period, 29 of the 3509 BS patients developed OC compared with 44,006
of the 5,655,702 without salpingectomy. The meta-analysis results based on the fixed
effects model revealed a significant decrease in the risk of OC occurrence in the
patients who underwent BS relative to the controls (OR=0.51, 95% CI 0.35–0.75, I2=0%). This pattern was also observed in subgroup analysis for the study type.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that removal of the fallopian tubes is an effective measure to
reduce OC risk in the general population. Therefore, prophylactic bilateral salpingectomy
should be considered for women who require hysterectomy with benign indications or
sterilisation procedures.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 08, 2016
Accepted:
December 6,
2015
Received in revised form:
December 2,
2015
Received:
July 27,
2015
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
ScienceDirect
Access this article on ScienceDirectLinked Article
- Response to ‘Letter to the Editor’ by Wendy Hernandez-Fernandez et al.European Journal of CancerVol. 64
- Letter to the Editor regarding the paper by Sang-Hee Yoon et al., Bilateral salpingectomy can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer in the general population: A meta-analysisEuropean Journal of CancerVol. 64
