title: Circulating levels of sex steroid hormones and risk of ovarian cancer.
abstract: Experimental and epidemiological evidence supports a role for sex steroid hormones in the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer. We investigated the association between ovarian cancer risk and pre-diagnostic blood concentrations of testosterone, androstenedione, DHEAS, estrone and SHBG. A case-control study nested within 3 cohorts, in New York (USA), Umeå (Sweden) and Milan (Italy), included 132 subjects with primary invasive epithelial ovarian cancer. For each case subject, 2 controls were selected who matched a case on cohort, menopausal status, age and date of recruitment and, if premenopausal, day of the menstrual cycle at blood donation. Only women who did not use exogenous hormones at blood donation were included in the study. Conditional logistic regression was used to relate cancer risk to sex steroid hormone concentrations with adjustment for potential confounders. No clear association was observed between ovarian cancer risk and any of the 5 hormones under study. In the premenopausal group, the risk appeared to increase with increasing blood concentrations of androstenedione (upper vs. lower tertile OR = 2.35; 95% CI = 0.81-6.82.), but the small number of subjects in the sub-group precluded reaching unambiguous conclusions about such association. Our study does not support previous observations relating elevations in blood levels of the major sex steroid hormones to an increased risk of ovarian cancer, but offers some evidence that elevated circulating androstenedione before menopause may be associated with increased ovarian cancer risk.
authors.affiliation: Hormones and Cancer Group, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France.
authors.forename: Annekatrin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lukanova
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Lundin
authors.forename: Arslan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Akhmedkhanov
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Micheli
authors.forename: Sabina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rinaldi
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zeleniuch-Jacquotte
authors.forename: Per
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Lenner
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Muti
authors.forename: Carine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Biessy
authors.forename: Vittorio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Krogh
authors.forename: Franco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Berrino
authors.forename: Göran
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Hallmans
authors.forename: Elio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Riboli
authors.forename: Rudolf
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kaaks
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Toniolo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004198:Disease Susceptibility; D005260:Female; D012739:Gonadal Steroid Hormones / Q000097:blood*; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D009518:New York / Q000453:epidemiology; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000097:blood* / Q000453:epidemiology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D013548:Sweden / Q000453:epidemiology
chemical_list: D012739:Gonadal Steroid Hormones