United States: Endometriosis affects approximately 11% of reproductive-aged women, with high prevalence among those experiencing pelvic pain (50-60%) and infertility (up to 50%).
It is associated with increased risks of ovarian, breast, and endometrial cancers as comorbidities.
Diverse Health Impacts
Endometriosis affects women’s health in many ways, causing mental and menstrual symptoms, along with issues like constipation (67% higher risk), haemorrhoids (46% higher risk), and indigestion (25% higher risk), as shown in studies.
While the associations have been reported between the endometriosis and the low grade serous ovarian cancer, consistent associations were not determined for the high grade serous or mucinous tumors though the association have also not been determined between ovarian cancer and endometriosis subtypes.
Study Findings
Investigators and researchers conducted a study to evaluate the association between the endometriosis and endometriosis subtypes with the ovarian cancer incidence overall and by histotype the data was obtained from the Utah population-based data resource.
A retrospective cohort was developed using UPDB data and the participants included the women aged 18 to 55 years with at least 1 diagnosis of endometriosis and the inpatient records state-wide ambulatory surgery records the University of Utah electronic health records and the intermountain Health EHRs were assessed to identify diagnoses.
Significant Risk Increase
Women without a history of endometriosis were evenly distributed among the 5 most commonly evaluated histotypes. Covariates included race and ethnicity, sex, birth location, birth month and year, birth residence, death month and year, and last month and year with Utah residence.
The strongest association between the endometriosis subtypes and the ovarian cancer histotypes was found between deep infiltration or the ovarian endometriomas with the type 1 ovarian cancer and with aHR of 18.96 however all the endometriosis subtypes were associated with the increased risks of type 1 and type 2 ovarian cancer.
Excess risk of ovarian cancer was identified in 9.90 women with endometriosis per 10,000. For the overall association, a bias-adjusted hazard ratio of 8.29 was reported.
These results indicated a very frequent increased risk of ovarian cancer among women with endometriosis. Investigators recommended future studies work to improve characterization of the biology underlying these associations.