Positive association between obesity and ovarian cancer

Overweight and obesity are associated with an increased prevalence of malignant neoplasia, including some common hormono-sensitive types. Evidence for an effect of obesity on the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer remains inconclusive. For this reason, a systematic literature review using Medline followed by a manual review of retrieved literature was carried out. A meta-analysis was performed on those studies where effect was expressed as odds ratio (OR), risk ratio, or standardized incidence ratio and 95% confidence interval (CI). Of the 28 eligible studies, 24 reported a positive association between obesity-overweight and ovarian cancer, 10 of which achieved statistical significance. The pooled effect estimate was 1.3 for adult obesity (95% CI 1.1-1.5) and 1.2 for overweight (95% CI 1.0-1.3), the association being similar for different histological subtypes of ovarian cancer.

Abstract