IVF Patients Should Gather All the Information About Their Condition

An interesting patient has been referred to me by a gynecological oncologist. She had been diagnosed with early endometrial adenocarcinoma. She was sent to Malpani Clinic because she wanted to have her reproductive options assessed.

She was a 24-year old woman with polycystic ovarian disease and had been married for just six months. She had complaints of heavy menstrual periods so she had gone to a doctor for an evaluation where a polyp had been detected in her uterus. For this, she had had a hysteroscopy performed. To her chagrin, her histopathology report indicated that she had complex hyperplasia with atypia with early endometrial adenocarcinoma.

On further evaluation, it was revealed that the cancer was localized and non-invasive. Since, she wanted to complete her family she wanted to know whether her uterus could be saved. Usually in such cases she would be advised to get her uterus surgically removed by undergoing a hysterectomy. Apart from being standard medical procedure , this would be safe advise for her doctors to give her, as it would keep the doctor safe from reprisals in case the cancer spread if she did not undergo the surgery. She could sue her doctor for putting her health at risk as it is a widely accepted fact that cancerous tissue is meant to be removed. Even if they want to, doctors are reluctant to prescribe non-standard procedures because they are afraid of getting into trouble.

However, I took a different approach. I advised the patient to learn ext...

Source: The Patient's Doctor - August 6, 2013 Category: Obstetricians and Gynecologists Tags: IVF homework IVF expert patient IVF information Source Type: blogs