Cancerwise

You may already understand the importance of going to a place like UT MD Anderson for your cancer treatment. You may recognize the need for specialists who will tailor a plan just for you, based on the exact type of cancer you have and how advanced it is.

But how does that individualized care benefit you when it comes to ovarian cancer prevention and treatment, specifically?

Gynecologic oncologists Amir Jazaeri, M.D., and Roni Niteke Wilke, M.D., explored this topic during a recent episode of UT MD Anderson’s Cancerwise podcast.

Here are three benefits they shared.

Second-look laparoscopies may offer you earlier MRD treatment options

One of the biggest challenges of ovarian cancer is not that the initial therapies used to treat it don’t work. They often do. The problem lies in measurable residual disease (MRD), or the microscopic levels of cancer sometimes left behind despite these treatments.

These lingering cancer cells are undetectable using current scans and tests. But over time, they can eventually grow into a recurrence. So, UT MD Anderson doctors are offering ovarian cancer patients a procedure called a second-look laparoscopy to help them find these rogue cells earlier.

“We can detect residual cancer in 25% to 65% of the women who would otherwise have had a normal CT scan and CA-125 level at the time of surgery,” explains Jazaeri. “If we already know that MRD is associated with worse outcomes, why not offer these patients investigational therapies at this point, rather than waiting until the cancer becomes bigger and more difficult to treat?”