Markers of inflammation and risk of ovarian cancer in Los Angeles County

Anna H Wu, Celeste Leigh Pearce, Celeste L Pearce, Chiu-Chen Tseng, Chiu‐Chen Tseng, Claire Templeman, Malcolm C Pike
International journal of cancer · 2008 · vol. 124(6) , pp. 1409–1415 · doi:10.1002/ijc.24091 · PMID:19065661 · PMC4203374 · W2001083758
article OA: green CC0 ⤵ 17 in-corpus citations
📄 Open PDF View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-09 ⓘ

This study found that talc use and a history of endometriosis were associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer, while NSAID use also showed a positive association with risk.

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

⚙ AI-generated deep summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-10 ⓘ

This population-based case-control study in Los Angeles County evaluated whether chronic inflammation–related exposures were associated with epithelial ovarian cancer risk, using interviews of 609 newly diagnosed cases and 688 matched controls about lifetime talc use, physician-diagnosed endometriosis, and NSAID use. The study found ovarian cancer risk increased with greater talc frequency and duration, with the highest adjusted relative risk among long-duration (20+ years) daily-or-more users, and it also found a statistically significant association between endometriosis history and ovarian cancer risk; additionally, talc users with prior endometriosis had a markedly higher risk than expected. Contrary to the hypothesis that NSAIDs might reduce risk, higher NSAID frequency and longer duration of use were associated with increased ovarian cancer risk across NSAID types, and the authors note this was unexpected and may reflect reasons for NSAID use rather than a direct anti-inflammatory effect, requiring confirmation. This paper is centrally about endometriosis — it reports physician-diagnosed endometriosis as an exposure associated with ovarian cancer risk and examines interaction with talc use.

Read from the paper's body, not the abstract. Not a substitute for reading the paper. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Factors that increase inflammation have been suggested to influence the development of ovarian cancer, but these factors have not been well studied. To further investigate this question, we studied the role of talc use, history of endometrioisis and use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and risk of ovarian cancer in a population-based case-control study in Los Angeles County involving 609 women with newly diagnosed epithelial ovarian cancer and 688 population-based control women. Risk of ovarian cancer increased significantly with increasing frequency and duration of talc use; compared to never users risk was highest among long-duration (20+ years), frequent (at least daily) talc users (adjusted relative risk (RR) = 2.08, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.34-3.23). A history of physician-diagnosed endometriosis was statistically significantly associated with risk (RR = 1.66, 95% CI = 1.01-2.75). Women who were talc users and had a history of endometriosis showed a 3-fold increased risk (RR = 3.12, 95% CI = 1.36-7.22). Contrary to the hypothesis that risk of ovarian cancer may be reduced by use of NSAIDs; risk increased with increasing frequency (per 7 times/week, RR = 1.27, 95% CI = 1.14-1.43) and years of NSAID use (per 5 years of use, RR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.10-1.42); this was consistent across types of NSAIDs. We conclude that risk of ovarian cancer is significantly associated with talc use and with a history of endometriosis, as has been found in previous studies. The NSAID finding was unexpected and suggests that factors associated with inflammation are associated with ovarian cancer risk. This result needs confirmation with careful attention to the reasons for NSAID use.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

Condition tags

endometriosis

MeSH descriptors

Inflammation Ovarian Neoplasms Adult Aged Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal Biomarkers Biomarkers Confidence Intervals Educational Status Endometriosis Endometriosis Ethnicity Female Humans Inflammation Inflammation Inflammation Los Angeles Los Angeles

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 (30)

Cited by (17)

Source provenance

europepmc
last seen: 2026-06-21T06:12:49.409960+00:00
openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-05-13T22:14:18.065553+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK