General Surgeons Can Perform Opportunistic Salpingectomy to Reduce Ovarian Cancer Rates

Chidambaram S, Stone R, Roche KL, et al. A Role for General Surgery in Saving Lives from Ovarian Cancer. J Am Coll Surg. 2025, in press.

Hagemann AR, Mutch DG. Opportunistic Salpingectomy: A Call to Implementation Science Arms to Prevent Ovarian Cancer. J Am Coll Surg. 2025, in press.

This surgical perspective provided ways to reduce the health burden of ovarian cancer. Data cited in the article showed that ovarian cancer is the sixth leading cause of cancer death in women. Ovarian cancers are now known to arise from cells at the ovarian end of the fallopian tube; this knowledge has led to the use of salpingectomy in patients who no longer desire to have children as a means of preventing this malignancy.

Data from studies in Sweden and British Columbia have shown that bilateral salpingectomy can prevent almost all cell types of ovarian cancer and reduce risk by 65%. Salpingo-oophorectomy is known to be effective in patients with genetic risk factors for ovarian cancer.

Opportunistic salpingectomy (removal of the fallopian tubes during procedures other than oophorectomy) has been suggested as a means of cancer prevention; currently, this is done mostly by gynecologists, but other surgical specialists can join in this effort. There is a clear pathway for general surgeons, and others, to join in preventing ovarian cancer by adding opportunistic salpingectomy to procedures such as cholecystectomy in selected patients.

The article encouraged general surgeons to join with other surgical specialists within organizations such as the ACS to develop protocols for the best use of this approach. The editorial comment by Hagemann and Mutch suggested that implementation science could be useful in developing multispecialty protocols for use of opportunistic salpingectomy.