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Surgical 'Add-On' Lowers Risk Of Ovarian Cancer
- February 6, 2026
- Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
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A simple surgical add-on can dramatically reduce a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer, a new study says.
Proactively removing the fallopian tubes during routine gynecologic surgeries like hysterectomy or tubal ligation can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer by nearly 80%, researchers reported Feb. 2 in JAMA Network Open.
“This study clearly demonstrates that removing the fallopian tubes as an add-on during routine surgery can help prevent the most lethal type of ovarian cancer,” said co-senior researcher Gillian Hanley, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
“It shows how this relatively simple change in surgical practice can have a profound and life-saving impact,” Hanley said in a news release.
Ovarian cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths among women, according to the American Cancer Society (ACS).
About 21,010 U.S. women will be diagnosed with ovarian cancer and about 12,450 will die from it in 2026, the ACS projects. A woman’s lifetime risk of dying from ovarian cancer is about 1 in 143.
There’s currently no reliable screening test for ovarian cancer, meaning that most cases are caught at an advanced stage, researchers said in background notes. Five-year survival rates are lower than 50%.
For the new study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 86,000 patients in British Columbia who underwent either a hysterectomy or tubal ligation between 2008 and 2020.
Tubal ligation is the sterilization procedure more commonly known as tieing tubes.
The new surgical approach — called opportunistic salpingectomy — was employed in about half of these procedures, researchers said. This approach leaves a woman’s ovaries intact, preserving their hormone production and minimizing side effects.
Overall, people who had their fallopian tubes removed were 78% less likely to develop serous ovarian cancer, a type that primarily arises from the epithelial cells that line the ovaries, researchers found.
Further, ovarian cancers tended to be less biologically aggressive if a woman had undergone opportunistic salpingectomy, results showed.
Opportunistic salpingectomy was first introduced in British Columbia in 2010 by its developer, Dr. Dianne Miller, an associate professor emerita at the University of British Columbia in Canada, researchers said.
These days, 80% of hysterectomies and tubal ligations in the province now include fallopian tube removal.
“Our hope is that more clinicians will adopt this proven approach, which has the potential to save countless lives,” said co-senior researcher Dr. David Huntsman, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia.
“Not offering this surgical add-on may leave patients unnecessarily vulnerable to this cancer,” he added.
More information
The American Cancer Society has more on ovarian cancer.
SOURCE: University of British Columbia, news release, Feb. 2, 2026; JAMA Network Open, Feb. 2, 2026
