Bilateral salpingectomy can reduce the risk of ovarian cancer in the general population: A meta-analysis

Abstract Background The results of recent studies have suggested that high-grade serous ovarian cancer predominantly arises within the fallopian tubes. The reduction of ovarian cancer (OC) risk in women with a history of bilateral salpingectomy (BS) has been reported. We performed a meta-analysis to determine the impact of BS in preventing OC in the general population. Methods We searched the PubMed, MEDLINE, and EMBASE databases and CENTRAL in the Cochrane Library for all English-language articles published up to January 2015, using the key words ‘ovarian cancer’ and ‘bilateral salpingectomy.’ Odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated by standard meta-analysis techniques. Results Of the 77 studies retrieved, three were included in this meta-analysis, including one cohort study and two population-based case-control studies with 3509 patients who underwent BS and 5,655,702 controls who did not undergo salpingectomy. Over the combined study period, 29 of the 3509 BS patients developed OC compared with 44,006 of the 5,655,702 without salpingectomy. The meta-analysis results based on the fixed effects model revealed a significant decrease in the risk of OC occurrence in the patients who underwent BS relative to the controls (OR = 0.51, 95% CI 0.35–0.75, I2 = 0%). This pattern was also observed in subgroup analysis for the study type. Conclusions Our results suggest that removal of the fallopian tubes is an effective measure to reduce OC risk in the general population. Therefore, prophylactic bilateral salpingectomy should be considered for women who require hysterectomy with benign indications or sterilisation procedures.