Background: Limited estimates exist on risk factors for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) in Asian, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (NHPI) women.
Methods: Participants included 1734 Asian (785 cases, 949 controls), 266 NHPI (99 cases, 167 controls), 1149 Hispanic (505 cases, 644 controls), and 24,189 White (9,981 cases, 14,208 controls) women from 11 studies in the Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium. Logistic regression models estimated odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for risk associations by race and ethnicity.
Results: Heterogeneity in EOC risk associations by race and ethnicity (p ≤ 0.02) was observed for oral contraceptive (OC) use, parity, tubal ligation and smoking. We observed inverse associations with EOC risk for OC use and parity across all groups; associations were strongest in NHPI and Asian women. The inverse association for tubal ligation with risk was most pronounced for NHPI participants (OR=0.25, 95% CI 0.13-0.48), versus Asian and White participants, respectively (OR=0.68, 95% CI 0.51-0.90; OR=0.78, 95% CI 0.73-0.85).
Conclusions: Differences in EOC risk factor associations were observed across racial and ethnic groups, which could in part be due to varying prevalence of EOC histotypes. Inclusion of greater diversity in future studies is essential to inform prevention strategies.
Keywords: ethnicity; ovarian cancer; race; risk factors.
© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.