子宮体癌，卵巣癌予防～最近の話題

抄録

We live in an era in which half of the population is affected by cancer. Regardless of how much progress hasbeen made in medical science and how high the cure rate is, having cancer significantly impacts patients’ lives aswell as those of their families and friends. Thus, avoiding preventable cancers is an important issue not only for anindividual but also for our society. Cancer prevention consists of two steps. Primary prevention is avoiding factorsthat cause cancer. Secondary preventions include the early detection of cancer or precancer and subsequent earlyand minimally invasive treatment. It is a national policy of Japan to reduce the cancer mortality rate and improvethe quality of life of people through appropriate primary and secondary prevention based on scientific evidence.The Third Basic Plan for the Promotion of Cancer Control, formulated in 2008, declares that more efforts will beput into cancer education and prevention. In this review, I introduce recent findings on endometrial and ovariancancers from the perspective of cancer prevention. Recently, the molecular biological mechanisms of the oncogenesis of these cancers have been elucidated, and progress has been made in cancer treatment and prevention. Ingeneral, cancer is a disease of the relatively older population. However, this review emphasizes the importance ofwomen’s health care from a young age for the prevention of gynecological cancer.