Anthropometric risk factors for ovarian cancer in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study

Sebastian E Baumeister,Inga Schlecht,Christa Meisinger,Michael F Leitzmann,Michael Nolde,Britton Trabert

doi:10.1007/s10552-020-01377-y

Abstract

ObjectiveIdentifying potentially modifiable risk factors for ovarian cancer is essential for prevention because this cancer is predominantly detected at a late stage. Here, we estimated the relations of general adiposity and measures reflecting body fat distribution to the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer.MethodsWe ascertained 683 ovarian epithelial cancers (343 high-grade serous, 141 non-high grade serous) among 145,575 women, aged 50–72 years (median follow-up 12.6 years), from the National Institutes of Health—American Association of Retired Persons (NIH-AARP) Diet and Health Study. Using Cox models, we estimated confounder-adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for associations of overall ovarian cancer, high-grade serous and non-high-grade serous carcinoma with body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference, waist–hip ratio, waist–height ratio, body adiposity index, body shape index, and abdominal volume index.ResultsAnthropometric measures were unrelated to overall ovarian cancer, high-grade serous cancer, and non-high-grade serous cancer. For example, the HR for overall ovarian cancer per standard deviation increment of body mass index at baseline was 0.98 (95% CI 0.88–1.10). Similar associations were observed with measurements of body fat distribution.ConclusionThese results do not indicate that adult adiposity is associated with ovarian cancer risk in post-menopausal women.

Highlights

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in women in North America and western Europe [1]
Cox proportional hazards regression was used for estimating adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for overall ovarian cancer and ovarian cancer subtypes
After confirming that the linearity assumption was met by testing cubic spline transformations [25], HRs were estimated per standard deviation (1-SD) increase in anthropometric measures

Summary

Introduction

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cause of cancer death in women in North America and western Europe [1]. Meta-analyses and pooled observational studies suggest that obesity may be positively related to ovarian cancer risk [2,3,4,5]. The World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research concluded that the evidence for the link between obesity and increased ovarian cancer risk is probable [6], and an umbrella review graded the evidence as suggestive [3]. We conducted a cohort study among post-menopausal women using data from the National Institutes of Health-American Association of Retired Persons (NIH-AARP) Diet and

Methods

Results

Conclusion