Elsevier

Gynecologic Oncology

Volume 84, Issue 3, March 2002, Pages 399-403
Gynecologic Oncology

Regular Article
Survival among U.S. Women with Invasive Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

https://doi.org/10.1006/gyno.2001.6536Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective. Invasive epithelial ovarian cancer is a highly fatal disease, diagnosed at advanced stages when survival is poor. Relatively little is known about the variation in survival across U.S. women of different race/ethnicities. To investigate this issue, we evaluated pathological characteristics and death rates due to invasive epithelial ovarian cancer in a population-based sample of patients from six racial/ethnic groups.

Methods. The analysis included 38,012 women diagnosed with primary invasive epithelial ovarian cancer between 1973 and 1997 in the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results Program of the National Cancer Institute.

Results. Filipina patients were younger at diagnosis, more likely to have localized disease, and had more mucinous cancers than whites. African-Americans were more likely than whites to be diagnosed at older ages, with distant disease and with undifferentiated/unclassified cancers. After adjusting for age at diagnosis, stage of disease at diagnosis, and cancer histology, we found that, compared to whites, death rates were significantly elevated among African-Americans and significantly reduced among Hispanics and Filipina. We also found that death rates declined significantly with time since diagnosis among women with advanced disease.

Conclusion. The declining death rates in women with advanced disease suggest the presence of considerable prognostic heterogeneity among these women, which could reflect differences in quality of care. This issue, as well as the survival disadvantage for African-American women and survival advantages for Hispanic and Filipina women, needs investigation.

References (24)

  • C Trope et al.

    Management of borderline tumors of the ovary: state of the art

    Semin Oncol

    (1998)
  • Cited by (137)

    • Current status of hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC) for ovarian cancer in the United States

      2020, Gynecologic Oncology
      Citation Excerpt :

      When grouping non-white racial groups together, there was not a difference in rates of HIPEC between non-White and White ovarian cancer patients. Prior studies have shown that Black women are less likely to receive surgery and chemotherapy and more often treated with chemotherapy alone, with one study showing that Black ovarian cancer patients had 40% higher odds of not having an operative procedure compared to White patients [25–28]. Racial disparities in adoption of novel treatment strategies are improtant to track and will need to be reported once numbers reach a threshold that protect patient privacy.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    1

    To whom correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed at Department of Health Research and Policy, HRP Redwood Building, Room T213C, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305-5405. Fax: (650) 725-6951. E-mail: [email protected].

    View full text