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

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • 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.

Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Cancer
Volume153
Issue number5
Pages (from-to)958-968
Number of pages11
ISSN0020-7136
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 UICC.

    Research areas

  • borderline ovarian tumors, cohort study, ovarian cancer, polycystic ovary syndrome

ID: 367708080