Smith Christopher G
Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Kentucky Medical Center, 800 Rose Street, Lexington, KY 40536-0293, USA.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2017 Apr 27;7(2):24. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics7020024.
Identifying, understanding, and curing disease is a lifelong endeavor for any medical practitioner. Equally as important is to be cognizant of the impact a disease has on the individual suffering from it, as well as on their family. Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancies. Symptoms are vague, and the disease is generally at an advanced stage at diagnosis. Efforts have been made to develop methods to identify ovarian cancer at earlier stages, thus improving overall mortality. Transvaginal ultrasound (TVUS), with and without laboratory tests, can be used to screen for ovarian cancer. For over thirty years, the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center Ovarian Cancer Screening Program has been studying the efficacy of TVUS for detecting early stage ovarian cancer. After 285,000+ TVUS examinations provided to over 45,000 women, the program has demonstrated that regular TVUS examinations can detect ovarian cancer at early stages, and that survival is increased in those women whose ovarian cancer was detected with screening and who undergo standard treatment. These results demonstrate the utility of TVUS as an efficacious method of ovarian cancer screening.
对于任何医学从业者来说，识别、理解和治愈疾病都是一项终身的事业。同样重要的是，要认识到疾病对患病个体及其家庭的影响。卵巢癌是妇科恶性肿瘤的主要死因。症状不明确，疾病在诊断时通常已处于晚期。人们一直在努力开发在早期阶段识别卵巢癌的方法，从而提高总体死亡率。经阴道超声检查（TVUS），无论是否结合实验室检查，都可用于筛查卵巢癌。三十多年来，肯塔基大学马基癌症中心卵巢癌筛查项目一直在研究TVUS检测早期卵巢癌的功效。在为超过45000名女性提供了285000多次TVUS检查后，该项目证明定期TVUS检查可以在早期阶段检测出卵巢癌，并且那些通过筛查检测出卵巢癌并接受标准治疗的女性的生存率有所提高。这些结果证明了TVUS作为一种有效的卵巢癌筛查方法的实用性。
