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Research Recommends Screening Women with Endometrial Cancer for Genetic Risk

Release Date: 07/29/2016

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island was the fourth largest recruiter of women for a study in which the authors concluded that women with endometrial cancer should also be screened for genetic risk for Lynch syndrome, a hereditary colorectal cancer. The study reinforced the practice of pathological screening in this population that has been in place at Women & Infants for the past three years.

 

The study - entitled “Combined Microsatallite Instability, MLH1 Methylation Analysis, and Immunohistory for Lynch Syndrome Screening in Endometrial Cancers from GOG210: An NRG Oncology and Gynecologic Oncology Group Study” – was printed in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Authors include Paul DiSilvestro, MD, interim director of the Program in Women’s Oncology at Women & Infants and head of the Program’s research arm.

 

“This research reinforces the need for screening, and the value for us is that Women & Infants already does these screenings,” notes Dr. DiSilvestro, who is also a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. “The study is based on a large cohort of women with endometrial cancer who had information and tissue collected for examination.”

 

The researchers took on the challenge of identifying a best screening practice for Lynch syndrome, which had not been identified to that point despite the fact that endometrial cancer is the second most common malignancy in patients with Lynch syndrome.

 

Analysis of more than one thousand endometrial cancer tissue samples through the study suggested a probable link to Lynch syndrome in 41 percent of the women. The results also indicated that women of all ages with endometrial cancer should be screened. More than 24 percent of those women identified as genetic mutation carriers as part of this study were over the age of 60.

 

“Restricting Lynch testing to certain age groups could result in missing a substantial fraction of genetic disease,” Dr. DiSilvestro says. “Identifying women with endometrial cancer and Lynch syndrome benefits them as well as their at-risk relatives.”

 

Dr. DiSilvestro is accepting new patients. For more information, call (401) 453-7520.

 

About Women & Infants Hospital 

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, a Care New England hospital, is one of the nation’s leading specialty hospitals for women and newborns. A major teaching affiliate of The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University for obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics, as well as a number of specialized programs in women’s medicine, Women & Infants is the 9th largest stand-alone obstetrical service in the country and the largest in New England with approximately 8,500 deliveries per year. A Designated Baby-Friendly® USA hospital, U.S.News & World Report 2014-15 Best Children’s Hospital in Neonatology and a 2014 Leapfrog Top Hospital, in 2009 Women & Infants opened what was at the time the country’s largest, single-family room neonatal intensive care unit.

Women & Infants and Brown offer fellowship programs in gynecologic oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, urogynecology and reconstructive pelvic surgery, neonatal-perinatal medicine, pediatric and perinatal pathology, gynecologic pathology and cytopathology, and reproductive endocrinology and infertility. It is home to the nation’s first mother-baby perinatal psychiatric partial hospital, as well as the nation’s only fellowship program in obstetric medicine.

Women & Infants has been designated as a Breast Imaging Center of Excellence by the American College of Radiography; a Center of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology; a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence by the National Institutes of Health (NIH); and a Neonatal Resource Services Center of Excellence. It is one of the largest and most prestigious research facilities in high risk and normal obstetrics, gynecology and newborn pediatrics in the nation, and is a member of the National Cancer Institute’s Gynecologic Oncology Group and the Pelvic Floor Disorders Network.