Researchers have concluded that women, undergoing ovary removal may face a risk of dementia, which is a disorder of the brain that can cause emotional disturbances or even personality changes.
Every year, about 23,000 US women are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and 14,000 women die from the disease. To reduce the risk of this disease surgeons often prescribe the removal the ovaries.Researchers led by Walter Rocca at Mayo Clinic studied 2,511 women who had these operations between 1950 and 1987 and matched them with the women who did not undergo ovary removal, reported health portal WebMD.
Rocca's team determined whether the women developed dementia by interviewing a family member or by giving the women a test over the phone.
"If before age 46 you remove two ovaries, you get a 70 percent increased risk of dementia. And we discovered that women who have only one ovary removed before age 38 -- this is a surgery more often done in younger women -- we see a 260 percent increase in dementia, Rocca said.
Dementia is an organic mental disorder characterised by a general loss of intellectual abilities involving impairment of memory, judgment and abstract thinking as well as changes in personality.
