Lynch Syndrome (LS) is an inherited condition which increases the risk of certain cancers developing, including bowel, womb and ovarian cancer.
The main way that people with Lynch Syndrome can reduce their risk of the gynaecological cancers is with surgery to remove the womb, cervix and ovaries. This has a huge impact on women, both physically and psychologically, and can plummet them into the menopause, if they haven’t already been through it.
Because of the impact of the surgery, some women choose not to have surgery, or to delay it until after the menopause, for these women a form of screening or surveillance womb-lining screening may offer some reassurance. Currently, one possibility is womb-lining screening, although, there isn’t much evidence for how well it works in women with Lynch Syndrome.
Previous research has shown that cancer in the lining of womb in people with Lynch Syndrome is usually associated with the loss of certain proteins that are important in DNA repair, they are called mismatch repair proteins.
The aim of this project is to find out whether it is possible to predict the onset of womb-lining pre-cancer and cancer using immunohistochemistry, where a sample taken from the womb lining is stained and looked at under a microscope. Immunohistochemistry allows you to see microscopic changes and the loss of these DNA repair proteins in otherwise normal looking womb-lining samples from women with Lynch Syndrome.
If the research shows that loss of DNA repair proteins in normal womb-lining can be seen before pre-cancer or cancer develops, then the research team may be able to use this information to better advise women on the most appropriate time to consider risk-reducing surgery, and hopefully give some peace of mind to the women who wish to wait until after they have been through the menopause.