Hanley, Gillian

Associate Professor

PhD

Associate Co-Head, Research

Biography

Dr. Gillian Hanley, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at the University of British Columbia. She is a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Population-based Gynecologic and Perinatal outcomes. Dr. Hanley has training in epidemiology, health services research (PhD) and health economics (MA). Her program of research uses the power of population-based administrative data to understand ovarian cancer prevention and survivorship. In ovarian cancer prevention, RCTs and prospective cohort studies can be very resource intensive due to the low lifetime risk of ovarian cancer (1.7%). The use of existing population-based datasets avoids the obstacles and therefore can be particularly useful for advancing research in these areas.

Specifically, Dr. Hanley has worked with the population-based datasets in BC to better understand opportunistic salpingectomy as an ovarian cancer prevention approach. Removal of the ovaries is not recommended for people at general population risk for ovarian cancer, as it is associated with increased total mortality, coronary heart disease, and osteoporosis. Thus, removal of the fallopian tubes during other pelvic surgeries (opportunistic salpingectomy) has arisen as a preventive strategy for people at average risk for ovarian cancer, who make up 80% of cases of high-grade serous cancer. Her research has shown that opportunistic salpingectomy is safe, cost-effective, and dramatically reduces risk for ovarian cancer. She is working to expand opportunistic salpingectomy to general surgery, and to use targeted risk-reducing salpingectomy for people at higher-than-average lifetime risk for ovarian cancer in order to reduce the incidence of ovarian cancer in BC, Canada and beyond. Her work has been cited in national and international clinical practice guidelines recommending opportunistic salpingectomy.

Dr. Hanley also has an interest in reproductive mental health, and psychotropic medication use during pregnancy. She has conducted many perinatal pharmacoepidemiology and collaborates nationally on safe medication use during pregnancy. Her work has examined maternal, infant and child outcomes following exposure to psychotropic medications during pregnancy, and specifically has tried to distinguish medication effects from those of perinatal mental illness and genetics that might predispose to perinatal mental illness and alter developmental outcomes.

Areas of Interest in Teaching/Research

• Gynecologic cancer
• Ovarian cancer; Cancer Prevention
• Reproductive mental health
• Perinatal pharmacoepidemiolgoy