Salpingo-oophorectomy

A salpingo-oophorectomy is the removal of an ovary and its fallopian tube. As a risk reducing surgery, it is the most effective form of prevention available to women carrying gene mutations that put them at higher risk of ovarian cancer, such as a BRCA mutation, and is particularly important for mutations of the tumor suppressing BRCA1 gene, and, with a statistically lower impact, the BRCA2 gene, which can raise the lifetime risk of ovarian cancer as high as 65 and 25 percent respectively. In a bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy both ovaries are removed, producing a surgical menopause as the body loses its normal source of estrogen, and hormone replacement therapy is generally recommended afterward unless the patient has a history of triple negative breast cancer.