Endometriosis could be linked with ovarian cancer

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2024-07-18 01:00

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Women with endometriosis could also be at higher risk of ovarian cancer, according to international researchers who say the type of endometriosis also seems to affect the risk and cancer type. The team found women with endometriosis had a 4.2-fold higher ovarian cancer risk than those without endometriosis, but women with ovarian endometriomas (cysts) and/or deep infiltrating endometriosis had a 9.7-fold higher risk compared to those without. The type of cancer also seemed to change with the endometriosis subtype, with the associations being much higher for type I ovarian cancer compared to type II ovarian cancer. According to the lead author, while ovarian cancer is still a fairly rare cancer, the results show that women with endometriosis, especially the more severe subtypes, should receive targeted cancer screening and prevention strategies to catch these cancers early.

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conference: JAMA

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Utah, USA

Funder: We acknowledge partial support for the UPDB through grant P30 CA2014 from the NCI, University of Utah, and the University of Utah’s program in Personalized Health and Center for Clinical and Translational Science. This research was also supported by the National Center for Research Resources grant, “Sharing Statewide Health Data for Genetic Research” (R01 RR021746), with additional support from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services and the University of Utah. Additionally, this research was supported by the Utah Cancer Registry, which is funded by the NCI’s SEER Program (contract No. HHSN261201800016I), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Program of Cancer Registries (cooperative agreement No. NU58DP007131), with additional support from the University of Utah and Huntsman Cancer Foundation. Research reported in this publication was also supported by the National Institutes of Health (award No. R01HL164715 [Drs Farland, Schliep, and Pollack], K00 CA212222 [Dr Barnard], and K01AG058781 [Dr Schliep]), by the Huntsman Cancer Institute’s Breast and Gynecologic Cancers Center, and by the Doris Duke Foundation’s COVID-19 Fund to Retain Clinical Scientists funded by the American Heart Association.

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