Salpingo-oophorectomy after breast cancer surgery cuts mortality in decades-long study

Overall survival improvements were ‘most evident’ in patients with the BRCA1 pathogenic variant and triple-negative disease.

Prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy at the time of breast cancer surgery in patients with the BRCA1 and BRCA2 pathogenic variants cuts the long-term risk of death by 60%, Italian doctors say.

Results from their decades-long retrospective cohort study back the importance of offering the risk-reducing procedure to those with invasive breast cancer and who carry the genetic mutations.

The researchers tracked 480 adults treated surgically for invasive breast cancer between 1972 and 2019, all of whom were advised to undergo both prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy and prophylactic mastectomy.

However, only 300 patients underwent salpingo-oophorectomy, while 163 underwent mastectomy.