“Women who carry the BRCA gene have an increased risk of ovarian cancer. Because ovarian cancer cannot be detected at an early stage, these women are advised to have their ovaries and fallopian tubes removed preventively before the age of 45. This is a difficult choice, since it means that they will enter menopause at a relatively young age. For a long time, we assumed that such an early menopause increased the risk of cardiovascular disease later in life. I decided to examine whether this assumption is correct. We compared 750 women who had undergone an oophorectomy: 500 before menopause, and 250 afterwards. We looked at two reliable markers of cardiovascular risk: coronary artery calcification and aortic stiffness. We ended up finding no differences between the two groups. This means that the women who enter menopause early due to preventive surgery did not show a demonstrably increased risk of cardiovascular disease in our study. That is very good news. My colleague Lara Terra and I spoke to every participant before the start of the study. These conversations were quite remarkable. It was impressive to see how willing these women were to contribute to research to help others.”
Maarten Beekman will start his residency in Internal Medicine at the Rode Kruis Ziekenhuis in Beverwijk in October. He will defend his thesis on September 4. Good luck, Maarten!
Research at the Netherlands Cancer Institute is financially supported by KWF Dutch Cancer Society and the AVL Foundation.
Long-term adverse effects of early surgical menopause due to risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy
prof. dr. A.H.E.M. (Angela) Maas & prof. dr. ir. F.E. (Floor) van Leeuwen
dr. M.J. (Maartje) Hooning