treatment for ovarian cancer

[jacquiedl]

greetings,
my sister lives in guatemala and went into surgery to get fibroids removed from her uterus- the doctor ended up taking out her ovaries because what was thought to be fibroids were actually tumors (hard like a baseball) on her ovaries that were spreading to her uterus.  The doctor removed a lot of the surrounding areas, but the results have not come back from the pathology lab.  
MY QUESTION IS THIS.............  If it is in fact cancer and the doctor knows he got it all.  Will she still need treatment- chemo or radiation???

thanks so much for your work,  Jacqueline

[Annekathryn Goodman, M.D.]

Hi There,
the decision on therapy after surgery depends on many issues:

-the type of tumor - benign fibroma or dermoid versus borderline ovarian tumors versus invasive ovarian cancer versus cancer of the uterus
so the therapy will be very different based of which of these it is.

for women with invasive ovarian cancer, decision about chemotherapy will depend on the stage of the disease - that is how far it has spread and the grade of the tumor - that is : is it slow growing (grade 1) or rapidly growing (grade 3)

for women with cancer of the uterus, further therapy (radiation and /or chemotherapy) will depend on stage and grade as well.
I hope all goes well for your sister
best wishes

[jacquiedl]

thank you very much!!!