My mom, who is 60, has a cyst in one of her ovaries. The doctors are removing the ovary, and have given her the option of also having a full hysterectomy while they’re at it (they have found nothing wrong with her uterus).
She asked me to do some research to see if this is a good idea, and I keep finding info on whether to remove the ovaries while going in for a hysterectomy, rather than the other way around. I am personally disinclined to remove organs just for the hell of it. Is there some reason to remove the uterus?
I suppose it reduces the risk of cervical or uterine cancer. (Some women with a serious family history of breast cancer pre-emptively remove their breasts.) It depends how she feels about it and what her risk is. IANAD so I don’t know if it matters, but you say cyst not tumor. If they are only removing one ovary and the other is not at risk, I fail to see the need for removal of the rest of the uterus.
Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. We don’t have a history of uterine or ovarian cancer in our family. They don’t believe there is cancer in the ovary, but since she’s not using it anymore they’re taking it out.
The full hysterectomy would also include removal of the other ovary. The gut reaction is that after menopause the only things these are good for is cancer. However, after finding lots of good reasons to not remove organs that were felt to be fairly useless. Another question is why they would want to remove a cyst? Just how large is it?
At the age of 60 the only thing a uterus is good for is providing a site for cancer. One might argue that leaving one ovary is a good idea since it is still producing a reduced amount of hormones that can be useful for such things a sex drive.
That said, they won’t know for sure whether the cyst is benign or malignant until they get in there. Ovarian growths of any type are devilishly hard to detect. They are often completely without symptoms. Gilda Radner died of ovarian cancer that wasn’t found in time.
My own experience includes having a borderline lesion grow to the size of a grapefruit between annual checkups. At the time I was feeling perfectly fine. There is no history of ovarian or uterine cancer in my family either; most of the women in my family lived to be quite elderly.
IANAD, just opinions based on my statistical sample of one.