Ovarian cysts in women
by Hillary Templeton
I think the first thing very important to say to women of all ages, just to have a brief overview of what the ovaries are. I'm sure they know they're the reproductive organs located in the pelvis. They are about the size of, I guess, a Robin's egg. The ovaries produce the eggs and the female hormones. The female hormones, of course, are the estrogens and progesterones that regulate the uterus, the menstrual cycle, as well as v
arious stages of pregnancy. The processes that cause the ovary to produce these hormones is very complex series of interactions of bio-chemical and feedback mechanisms that primarily is regulated by the pituitary gland in the brain. And the reason - this is going to be important a little bit later when we discuss certain types of cysts. Briefly, I'm Christopher Freville, an Indiana University trained Obstetrician Gynecologist. I have practiced 12 years in the field, and I've done a very, very intense practice. During that time I've had the pleasure of probably treating in excess of 10,000 women. I've done in excess of probably 2,500 births and thousands of major surgeries.
And, during this time, of course, like most Obstetrician Gynecologists, I've encountered more than my fair share, I guess, of questions regarding cysts and women who have concerns of cysts. And, I could tell you from this experience that probably the number one concern every woman has when she goes to the doctor is that she might have a cyst. And probably almost every one of these women have had cysts. That's the ironic thing.
I'd like to say that cysts do not - it's not equivalent to a tumor. And I think that's where a lot of the confusion comes in, because I think most lay people are of the concern, "Well, I've got a cyst, that must be a tumor." And, the reason that certainly women should be concerned is that probably the incidence of ovary tumors is somewhere between five and seven percent, meaning that five to seven percent of women will develop a tumor during their lifetime. Again, most of these tumors are benign - that's non-cancerous. But, the key here is that some of these tumors are cystic tumors. Some of the cancers are cystic cancers, but the majority of cysts are not tumors, and therefore, certainly are not cancerous.
What is a cyst? A cyst in general is just a fluid-filled sac, or it's a fluid-filled membrane - some liquid covered by a membrane in the body. And I'm sure that, as an example, some cysts that are seen frequently are sometimes certain skin cysts. There's also ganglion cysts that both men and women get on their wrists and up over various tendons. Again, these are just fluid-filled sacs that are growing for various reasons. The ovarian cysts - again, these cysts can be located anywhere in the body for various organs, and I'll touch on those briefly a little bit later. As far as ovary cysts, I think that the thing to go back to is for women to understand that the process by which the eggs are released is a function of this complex hormone feedback mechanism that I discussed earlier. The women are born with something like three or 400,000 eggs. That's all they ever get. Whereas, opposed to a man is born with the ability to produce millions of sperm per day. So his sperm is completely renewed. A woman's eggs are always there and disintegrate over time at a very fast rate, until they get into menopause around the age of 50.
About the Author
Hillary Templeton gives advice to women of all ages on ovarian cysts.