Risk of epithelial ovarian tumors among women with polycystic ovary syndrome: A nationwide population-based cohort study

Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskriftTidsskriftartikelForskningfagfællebedømt

  • Clarissa L.B. Frandsen
  • Pernille F. Svendsen
  • Bugge Nøhr
  • Jakob H. Viuff
  • Thomas Maltesen
  • Kjær, Susanne Krüger
  • Allan Jensen

An association between polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and epithelial ovarian tumors is biologically plausible as conditions inherent to PCOS such as excessive androgenic hormones, reproductive factors and obesity are also risk factors for these hormone-sensitive tumors. However, previous studies have showed conflicting results and have various methodological limitations. This population-based cohort study investigates the association between PCOS and epithelial ovarian tumors and includes all women born in Denmark between January 1, 1940 and December 31, 1993 (n = 1 719 304). PCOS diagnoses, ovarian cancer and borderline ovarian tumor diagnoses, covariates, migration and vital status were obtained from the Danish national registers. Adjusted cox proportional hazard regression models were used to calculate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for epithelial ovarian cancer and for borderline ovarian tumors overall as well as for histological subtypes separately. During median 26 years of follow-up we identified 6490 women with ovarian cancer and 2990 women with borderline ovarian tumors. Overall, we observed no marked associations between a diagnosis of PCOS and overall epithelial ovarian cancer or overall epithelial borderline ovarian tumors, irrespective of time since diagnosis. However, we found an increased risk of ovarian cancer among postmenopausal women with PCOS (HR 2.28 95% CI 1.02-5.09) and an increased risk of serous borderline ovarian tumors (HR 2.34 95% CI 1.21-4.53) in women with PCOS compared with women without PCOS. Importantly, low statistical precision is a crucial limitation of our study and in previous studies and larger studies with longer follow-up are therefore warranted.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
TidsskriftInternational Journal of Cancer
Vol/bind153
Udgave nummer5
Sider (fra-til)958-968
Antal sider11
ISSN0020-7136
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2023

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
The study was approved by The Danish Health Data Authority (J.nr. FSEID-00005526) and Statistics Denmark (J.nr. 708224) and approved and registered in the archive list of the Danish Cancer Society Research Center (J.nr. 2021-DCRC-0002). According to Danish law, no approval from the Ethical Committee is required for this register-based study.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 UICC.

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