Gynecologic (Women’s) Cancer

The Lahey Health Cancer Institute (LHCI) provides state-of-the-art methods of diagnosing and staging women’s cancers at convenient locations north of Boston. Detecting cancer at its earliest stage offers the best long-term prognosis, so early detection is an important goal.

Screening Techniques

Our gynecologic cancer specialists offer screening for human papilloma virus (HPV) and Pap smear evaluation, including second opinions. We perform colposcopy, a diagnostic procedure to closely examine your cervix and the surrounding tissue to look for cancerous and precancerous cell changes.

We also assess women who may be at higher risk for hereditary female cancer, such as ovarian cancer, due to ovarian cysts, family history and other factors.

A genetic mutation can increase your risk for developing cancer of the uterus (endometrial cancer) or the ovary. We can screen you for this and guide you in strategies to help reduce your risk.

If Cancer Is Confirmed

If your test results show cancer, be assured that you will not be in it alone. We will pair you with a patient navigator to help guide you through treatment decisions and survivorship. We will support you, educate you, and treat you according to best practices and the highest clinical standards.

Ovarian Cancer Risk Assessment

The risk for breast and ovarian cancer is not the same for all women. Some women need more advanced screening beyond the standard recommendations. But it’s not always clear who may be at higher risk.

To meet this challenge, Lahey Health has introduced a computerized Risk Assessment Screening Tool to help physicians more accurately determine their patients’ risk for breast and ovarian cancer. The earlier cancer is found, the greater the chance of successful treatment. This new tool helps women and their doctors determine what level of screening is best for them.

With our Risk Assessment Screening Tool, you use an electronic tablet at the time of your mammography appointment at a Lahey Health imaging center to confidently answer questions about your health and family history. Your doctor then sees a summary that calculates your five-year and lifetime risk of breast and ovarian cancer, using nationally recognized risk models.

The doctor can then use this information to decide if you might benefit from a higher level of screening beyond regular checkups and mammograms.

Genetic Counseling

Lahey Health has a robust Familial Cancer and Hereditary Risk Assessment program that is staffed by certified genetics counselors for all types of cancer. If you are at higher risk because of your family history, we can provide guidance on how to manage your risk.

Medical oncology is where some of the greatest advances in survivorship are happening. Today’s systemic treatments for female cancer are so much more than chemotherapy. For many women traditional chemotherapy can be avoided with a variety of hormonal approaches and other targeted therapies.

At the Lahey Health Cancer Institute (LHCI), our medical oncology treatments for uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, and other female cancers are evidence-based, cutting-edge therapies. We send tumor samples for genomic testing, so we can identify targeted treatments to defeat cancer at its very core – the molecular level.

What many women say is the biggest advantage is the ability to have these innovative medical oncology treatments right in their own communities. It’s the same comprehensive, complex, state-of-the art care delivered at city hospitals – but it’s available right here, close to home.

Chemotherapy

Today’s chemotherapy drugs are more effective than ever before. Most chemotherapy regimens have fewer side effects, and if side effects do occur, we have treatments to help manage them.The chemotherapy units throughout the Lahey Health are designed to enhance patient comfort and ease of treatment. Family members or friends may stay with you while you are receiving chemotherapy. Many of our locations provide free television service and free WiFi.

Chemotherapy treatment at LHCI reflects the Oncology Care Model (OCM) designed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in which we provide a wide variety of special support services for patients receiving chemotherapy. Learn more about OCM.

Molecular-Targeted Therapies

Molecular-targeted cancer therapies are drugs or other substances that block the spread of cancer by interfering with specific molecules involved in tumor growth. It includes drugs that:

• Interfere with the signals needed for cell growth or the blood vessels that feed a tumor
• Promote the death of specific cancer cells
• Stimulate the immune system to destroy specific cancer cells
• Deliver toxic drugs to cancer cells
• Targeted drugs can be used to address cancer cells with a certain genetic makeup. Because every cancer is unique, we will analyze the genetic makeup of your cancer to match you with the most effective targeted treatment for the best possible outcome.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy for gynecologic cancer involves the use of substances made either in the human body or in a laboratory to boost the body’s immune system. The goal is to stimulate your body’s immune system to fight against your particular type of cancer.

Fertility Counseling and Genetic Testing

If you are concerned about how your treatment might affect future plans to have a child, we offer fertility counseling services. We also offer genetic testing for you and family members, to look for certain markers that could help assess risk as well as guide treatments and decision making.

The Lahey Health Cancer Institute (LHCI) offers every possible option for radiation therapy, including leading-edge procedures that can greatly reduce treatment time and side effects.

We are focused on not exposing you to unnecessary radiation, so we are particularly skilled at adapting our services to treat you with the least amount of radiation needed.

Brachytherapy

Brachytherapy involves meticulously placing small, temporary radiation implants at site of cancerous cells, to kill the cancer with as little impact as possible on nearby healthy cells. At LHCI, this technique can treat cancers affecting the uterus, cervix and vaginal canal.

External Radiation

External radiation, also called external beam radiation, is the most common type of radiation therapy. In this procedure, radiation from a machine outside the body is focused on the area affected by cancer. External radiation is painless and is similar to getting an x-ray, although the radiation beam is stronger.

Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy

Intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) uses state-of-the-art linear accelerators to safely and painlessly deliver exact radiation doses to cancerous cells while minimizing the dose to normal tissue. Our radiation oncologists can conform the radiation dose to the shape of a tumor by modulating the radiation beam into smaller beams, which brings a higher dose of radiation where it’s needed most.

Quality and Safety Accreditation

Your safety is very important to us. Some of our quality and safety initiatives for radiation therapy include:

• Lahey uses the XECAN patient care and safety management system, which is technology that helps ensure the correct treatment of cancer patients.
• We have an overarching safety program called the Radiation Oncology Safety Initiative (ROSI), which focuses on all aspects of radiation oncology that have an effect on safety.
• We are members of the Clarity Patient Safety Organization (PSO), which operates the national Radiation Oncology Incident Learning System. By belonging to a national incident-learning database, we are able to compare our experience to that of all other participating institutions in the country, enhancing the potential for discovering significant error-prevention opportunities.
• All of the radiation therapy sites within the Lahey Health system are accredited by the American College of Radiology (ACR), which ensures quality and safety in patient care.

If you have been diagnosed with uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, or another type of women’s cancer, you can turn with confidence to the experienced and caring gynecologic cancer surgeons at the Lahey Health Cancer Institute (LHCI).

Today’s techniques are more refined than ever before, and Lahey Health’s surgeons are experts in performing them. They are especially skilled in fertility-sparing procedures and in robotic and minimally invasive techniques that can offer smaller incisions, less pain, and a faster recovery time.

Lahey Health is accredited as a Center of Excellence in Minimally Invasive Gynecology by the Surgical Review Corporation, which is focused on improving the safety and quality of patient care.

Fertility-Sparing Surgery

Our gynecologic cancer surgeons have extensive experience in procedures that can successfully treat cancer while preserving a woman’s ability to have children.

One example is trachelectomy, a technique for younger women with early cervical cancer. It involves removing the cervix (the tissue that connects the uterus and vagina) and some surrounding tissue but leaving the rest of the uterus in place. If the woman becomes pregnant, a stitch can be made in the bottom of the uterus to take the place of her cervix.

Robotic and Minimally Invasive Surgery

Procedures performed by Lahey Health surgeons using the precision of robotic surgery include cancer cases and complex benign cases. Some examples includehysterectomy, and cancer staging. Our surgeons also perform laparoscopic adnexal surgery, a minimally invasive procedure for cancer of the ovaries, fallopian tubes, or ovarian cysts.

Leading-Edge Surgery

Among our leading-edge procedures are cytoreductive surgery and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), also called hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy. These techniques have shown significant success in treating cancer that in the past was difficult to manage,