Radical Hysterectomy for cancer more complicated with Endometriosis

Just spotted this little snippet on the bbc:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7612083.stm

With Jade Goody set to undergo a hysterectomy after being diagnosed with cervical cancer. Earlier this month there have been a few articles about the treatment of cervical cancer and hysterectomy’s, in this BBC article a mention is made to Endometriosis, which apparently makes such surgery more difficult.

It doesn’t go into detail, however we suspect it’s due to the presence of scar tissue where operations have been undertaken previously, along with, in extreme cases, acute adhesions which can distort and weld the organs together making such work difficult, if anyone can point us to any information about increased risk or difficulties due to Endo in this sort of treatment let us know.

 

when it comes to cancer, a hysterectomy is not as straightforward as it can be when done for other conditions.

“With a simple hysterectomy the cervix and the womb are removed and it could take less than an hour,” Kehoe explains.

“But for cancer we do a radical hysterectomy where we remove the womb, cervix, some of the vagina and the lymph nodes in the pelvis to make sure the disease hasn’t spread.”

This more major surgery is more likely to take two to three hours or even much longer if there are complications.

“You might find the disease has spread to other areas that you hadn’t anticipated or you might get technical difficulties for example if the woman has endometriosis,” he says.

New Breast Cancer Treatment Drugs!

Not quite endo related directly, but in the future it may be, many drugs that are used to help women with endo are primarily cancer treatment agents or are used in combination with other drugs to treat cancer. There has been a dramitic improvement in some breast cancer treating drugs – they will become available widespread in the uk in about 3 years.. Click to read a short snippet from the BBC website along with a URL for the article.

A new generation of breast cancer drugs have proved to be more effective than tamoxifen for some post-menopausal women, suggests research.
The drugs, known as aromatase inhibitors, shrank tumours better and helped more women survive their illness.

However, is not clear if they will replace tamoxifen as the first-choice treatment for some types of breast cancer, and are unlikely to be available to UK women for some time.

(Cut from BBC) for rest go to here

BBC Site

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