A risk we can't mitigate, cancer of the Peritoneum

One of the other types of cancer that are related to the BRCA1 gene is Cancer of the Peritoneum. It turns out this is a relatively new discovery.

The gynecologist told us that ovarian cancer is now widely recognized as hereditary. As with just about every other cancer that I've encountered on this "sabbatical," it's not one specific genetic sequence that causes cancer there are potentially many triggers.

Prophylactic oophorectomy, doctor jargon for getting a preventative removal of the ovaries is used for women judged to have a 50% risk for this disease. However, recent evidence has disclosed that a fraction of the patients who underwent an oophorectomy and whose ovaries appeared normal when surgically removed, subsequently developed abdominal cancer with the laboratory finding the lesions to be indistinguishable from ovarian carcinoma.

This abdominal cancer is where the Peritoneum goes malignant. The peritoneum is the membrane sack lining the abdominal cavity which holds all of our organs in place. The doctor stresses the risk is small but as we've seen doctors behave before, we are told of all the things that can possibly go wrong.

Turns out the ovaries and the peritoneum come from the same stem cells and the final tissue of the two is pretty much identical. Who'd of thought that?