Purpose: Higher pathologic grade, suboptimal debulking surgery, and late-stage are markers of more aggressive and advanced ovarian cancer. Neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) has been associated with more aggressive and advanced tumors for other cancer sites, and this may also be true for ovarian cancer.
Methods: We examined the association between neighborhood SES and ovarian cancer tumor characteristics using data on 581 women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer in Cook County, Illinois. Two complementary measures (concentrated disadvantage and concentrated affluence) were used to estimate neighborhood SES. Prevalence differences and 95 % confidence intervals were estimated in logistic regression models adjusted for age and race.
Results: Greater disadvantage was associated with higher grade tumors (p = 0.03) and suboptimal debulking (p = 0.05) and marginally associated with later tumor stage (p = 0.20). Greater affluence was inversely associated with stage at diagnosis (p = 0.004) and suboptimal debulking (p = 0.03) and (marginally) with tumor grade (p = 0.21).
Conclusion: Our findings suggest that lower SES, estimated by neighborhood SES, is associated with ovarian cancer tumor characteristics indicative of more advanced and aggressive disease.