Background: Regular physical inactivity may increase ovarian cancer risk, but few studies have investigated whether this association is similar among Black and White women.
Methods: In a pooled nested case-control study within the Ovarian Cancer in Women of African Ancestry consortium, logistic regression models evaluated regular recreational physical inactivity with risk of epithelial ovarian cancer among Black (223 cases; 1,472 controls) and White women (985 cases; 6,212 controls) enrolled in four cohort studies. Models were further stratified by histologic type.
Results: Regular physical inactivity was not associated with the risk of overall ovarian cancer among Black [OR = 1.16; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.83-1.61] or White women (OR = 1.03; 95% CI, 0.87-1.23). We did not detect associations according to histologic type.
Conclusions: Physical inactivity was not associated with ovarian cancer among Black or White women in a consortium of cohort studies.
Impact: These results are counter to case-control-based studies and emphasize the complexity of investigating physical activity prospectively.
©2025 American Association for Cancer Research.