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American Morning

Removing Ovaries May Prevent Breast Cancer

Aired May 23, 2002 - 08:48   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We've all heard of women having their healthy breasts removed as a way of preventing cancer, but now another drastic measure is being considered: two new studies looking at how removing a healthy woman's ovaries also might help prevent the disease.

Joining us here in New York, CNN medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen.

Nice to see you in person -- welcome.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh thank you. You too. How are you?

ZAHN: This is really interesting.

COHEN: It is interesting because you just -- I mean who would have thunk it, you know, I mean that someone has breast cancer that runs in their family and instead of, or I suppose in addition to, removing the breasts, you remove the ovaries. But in fact, these two studies show that it actually made a big difference.

Let's take a look at the statistics.

The studies showed that when women removed their ovaries, 21 percent of them got breast cancer later in life. However, when women did not remove their ovaries, 42 percent of them got breast cancer later in life. That is obviously a big difference. And these women are doing it after they've had children, so there's really -- the ovaries aren't really so useful to them anymore.

We spoke to one woman who had her ovaries removed to prevent breast cancer. She's very happy she had the surgery, called an oophorectomy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN: Not until this most recent study that just was published did I realize that the risk was decreased by 75 percent. That makes me feel fantastic.

It's a tough decision, but the oophorectomy, I mean, I feel great. I highly recommend it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Now you might wonder, gee, why would removing your ovaries help you fight breast cancer? The reason why is that the ovaries produce hormones that you need in order to get eggs and get a baby, but they also produce hormones that breast cancer needs to live on and to thrive on. So if you stop the production of that hormone, then you can actually inhibit the growth of breast cancers. So there's actually a reason why this appears to be true.

ZAHN: And how invasive is the operation?

COHEN: I mean, it's invasive. I mean it doesn't take -- I mean the woman who we talked to just there, she went in, and it was done in a day. So it doesn't go on for days and days. But they're going in and removing a part of your body, so it's certainly not something that you want to take lightly.

These are women who had a specific genetic defect in what are called BRCA genes -- those are breast cancer genes. So these women had approximately a 70 percent chance of getting breast cancer sometime in their life. So for them, an invasive surgery was a whole lot better than a 70 percent chance of getting breast cancer.

ZAHN: So now that you got this news, you don't imagine women just running off without this gene going to have this done prophylactically?

COHEN: Golly, I hope not. Right. But what is interesting is that as we learn more and more about the human genome, doctors are probably going to find more and more genes that we just don't know about today. And in the future, they might say, Oh, gosh, now we've come up with another breast cancer gene, and now there's a whole other group of women who need to consider this surgery.

ZAHN: Well, I mean, the good news for these women who have chosen to go this route is that they haven't lost their two breasts in the process...

COHEN: Exactly. There's nothing physical...

ZAHN: ... which a lot of them would have opted to do first...

COHEN: Right.

ZAHN: ... before they ever would have tried this.

COHEN: Exactly. Exactly.

ZAHN: So it's I think good news for these women who...

COHEN: That's what these women...

ZAHN: ... have this family history.

COHEN: Exactly.

ZAHN: All right, thanks, Elizabeth. Thanks for coming by in person.

COHEN: Oh, my pleasure.

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