Postmenopausal cancer risk after self‐reported endometriosis diagnosis in the Iowa Women's Health Study

Janet E Olson, James R Cerhan, Carol A Janney, Kristin E Anderson, Celine M Vachon, Thomas A Sellers
Cancer · 2002 · vol. 94(5) , pp. 1612–1618 · doi:10.1002/cncr.10370 · PMID:11920519 · W2035224390
article OA: bronze CC0 ⤵ 104 in-corpus citations
🔓 Open OA copy View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-07 ⓘ

This study found that self-reported endometriosis was associated with an increased risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma but not with breast, ovarian, or other cancers in postmenopausal women.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Endometriosis, the presence of endometrial tissue outside the uterus, has an estimated prevalence between 4% and 10%. A recent study reported that women with a hospital discharge diagnosis of endometriosis were at increased risk of cancer at any site, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and hematopoietic malignancies, especially non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL). METHODS: The authors examined whether self-reported diagnosis of endometriosis was associated with increased risk of various cancers in the Iowa Women's Health Study. Incident cancer cases were identified from 1986 through 1998. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to calculate relative risks and 95% confidence intervals for the particular cancers of interest. RESULTS: Of 37,434 participants in this analysis, 3.8% reported a history of endometriosis at baseline in 1986. After 13 years of follow-up, 1795 breast, 188 ovarian, and 243 NHL cases were detected in the cohort. Endometriosis was not associated with risk of all cancers combined (age-adjusted relative risk [RR], 0.9; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.7-1.2), breast carcinoma (RR, 1.0; 95% CI, 0.8-1.3), or ovarian carcinoma (RR, 0.8; 95% CI, 0.2-2.4). However, endometriosis was significantly associated with risk of NHL (age-adjusted RR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.0-3.0), especially diffuse NHL (RR, 3.2; 95% CI, 1.8-5.6). Multivariate adjustment had minimal effect on the point estimates of risk (NHL RR, 1.7; 95% CI, 0.97-2.7; diffuse NHL RR, 3.3; 95% CI, 1.9-5.9). Endometriosis was not associated with elevated risk of lung, urinary tract, endometrial, melanoma, or colorectal carcinomas (RRs, 1.2, 0.8, 1.2, 0.7, and 0.7, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: These results corroborate a previously reported association between endometriosis and increased risk of NHL but not cancer at other sites.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

mesh:D004715endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Endometriosis Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin Postmenopause Aged Breast Neoplasms Breast Neoplasms Breast Neoplasms Cohort Studies Endometriosis Female Health Surveys Humans Incidence Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma, Non-Hodgkin Middle Aged Ovarian Neoplasms Ovarian Neoplasms Ovarian Neoplasms Risk Assessment

Citation neighborhood

Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

References (33)

Cited by (50)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-04T01:30:01.192114+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-04T00:00:01.174412+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:13:07.520820+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK