(May 25, 2017) A retrospective study, published earlier this month in Obstetrics & Gynecology, looked at when women with ovarian cancer developed blood clots. One in four women diagnosed with ovarian cancer develop a blood clot, but more specifically, over eleven percent of those who developed a blood clot did so during neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Women who are able to have surgery before chemotherapy are usually given blood clot prophylaxis so fewer of them, about five percent, develop blood clots at that stage. However, women who are not good candidates for surgery can receive chemotherapy first, known as neoadjuvant chemotherapy, and there is no standard for blood clot prophylaxis at that stage of treatment.
This particular study was small but experts agree that there needs to be more done now that this has been identified as an area of concern. Currently, there are two long term studies being done at the University of Michigan and the Mayo Clinic that are focusing on blood clots during cancer treatment.
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