Ovarian Cancer Risk Factors: What Patients Should Know
Ovarian Cancer Risk Factors: What Patients Should Know from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.
What ovarian cancer risk factors should patients know about? Expert Dr. Ebony Hoskins explains common risk factors and shares advice for patients to ensure their best care.
Dr. Hoskins is a board-certified gynecologic oncologist at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and assistant professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at Georgetown University Medical Center. Hoskins sees women for gynecological malignancies, which include the treatment of endometrial, ovarian, vulva, vaginal and cervical cancers.
[ACT]IVATION TIP
“…understanding the risk factors for ovarian cancer by also understanding the cancers that we know that we don’t have a screening for.”
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Transcript:
Mikki:
Dr. Hoskins, what are the risk factors for developing ovarian cancer?
Dr. Ebony Hoskins:
So, risk factors for developing ovarian cancer, I mentioned this, is genetics, could be genetics. So someone with a family history of breast and ovarian cancer, a BRCA mutation, Lynch syndrome. We also see it in women who are of later in age. Women who’ve had numerous ovulation cycles. Those are some of the risk factors. And I think the difference with, say, ovarian cancer is we don’t have a known precursor lesion to look for, to detect it early, if you will.
So it’s a little bit different than, say, some other cancers like a cervical cancer or colon cancer, where we can kind of find an early lesion and prevent it, with ovarian cancer we don’t. So these risk factors are kind of risk factors, but not necessarily diagnostic of it, if you will. So my activation tip would be understanding the risk factors for ovarian cancer by also understanding the cancers that where we know that we don’t have a screening for.
