Body size and risk of epithelial ovarian cancer (United States).
OBJECTIVE
We conducted a population-based case-control study of epithelial ovarian cancer in relation to measures of body size and adult weight change. In particular, we sought to characterize the independent relation of body weight at particular ages with risk.


METHODS
In-person interviews were sought with 35-54 year-old female residents of metropolitan Atlanta, Seattle or Detroit diagnosed with ovarian cancer during 1994-1998, and with controls sampled from these populations. Information provided by 355 cases and 1,637 controls was analyzed using unconditional logistic regression.


RESULTS
The risk among women in the top tenth, relative to women in the lowest fourth, of the distribution of body weight at age 18 years was 1.5 (95% confidence interval, 1.0-2.2); at age 30, 1.9 (1.2-2.9); and 5 years before the reference date, it was 2.1 (1.4-3.3). While our results did not substantiate risk elevations reported in previous studies among subsets of women (e.g., with particular histologic tumor subtypes or according to past oral contraceptive use), we noted a particularly increased risk among women who reported 10 or more pounds gained during their first year of oral contraceptive use.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings suggest that risk of epithelial ovarian cancer may be most closely linked with body weight in the relatively recent past (but before the time in which the disease may manifest as weight loss) among women who develop this disease during the years before or shortly after menopause.
Rossing
Mary Anne
MA
Program in Epidemiology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, P.O. Box 19024, Seattle, WA 98109-1024, USA. mrossing@fhcrc.org
Tang
Mei-Tzu C
MT
Flagg
Elaine W
EW
Weiss
Linda K
LK
Wicklund
Kristine G
KG
Weiss
Noel S
NS
D000328:Adult; D015992:Body Mass Index; D049628:Body Size; D001835:Body Weight; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009375:Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial / Q000209:etiology*; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000209:etiology*; D012307:Risk Factors