According to a new study in Cancer many women with ovarian cancer are undertreated: “women who were over 70, of African American or Hispanic race, or insured by Medicaid, were at greatest risk for undertreatment. In addition, women treated by non-gynecological oncologists, by surgeons who perform few ovarian cancer surgeries, and at facilities that perform fewer than 10 procedures per year were less likely to receive recommended surgical care.”

In a paper in Fertility and Sterility researchers report that “Infertility drugs may be safely used in women who have been treated for borderline ovarian tumors”.

Galina Lurie and associates report in Obstetrics & Gynecology that “Oral contraceptives with low levels of estrogen and progestin reduce the risk of ovarian cancer even more than older versions” of birth control pills. They also report that women who had used any type of birth control pill had a 50% less chance of getting ovarian cancer than those who hadn’t taken them at all. Those who had taken pills with higher levels of estrogen and progestin had their risk reduced by 38%, while those who took the ones with lower levels of both hormones had their risk reduced by 81%.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have that they can use RNA interference to knock down the expression of polypyrimidine tract-binding protein (PTB). PTB is a protein that tends to be overexpressed in human ovarian tumors and in involved in alternative splicing. Reducing the expression of PTB was found to be able to interfere with ovarian tumor growth. This protein could potentially become a new target for treating cancer in the future.