Sachi Horibata

Ph.D.

Michigan State University

Assistant Professor

PLCO (Learn more about this study)

PLCO-938

Mar 7, 2022

Effect of pregnancy and risk for ovarian cancer

Although ovarian cancer accounts for less than 3% of new cancer cases, the death rate associated with ovarian cancer is high, making it the fifth leading cause of cancer-related death in women. The primary reason is that ovarian cancer is often detected at a later stage. When detected early, patients have over a 90% 5-year survival rate. The current limitation is our lack of ability to detect ovarian cancer at an early stage. We would like to utilize the PLCO dataset to determine whether pregnancy, particularly the age of first pregnancy, number of pregnancies, stillbirth pregnancy, ectopic pregnancy, and miscarriage, and whether the mothers were breastfeeding after pregnancy affect their risk for ovarian cancer and their response to treatment.

Aims
Investigate whether the age of first pregnancy, number of pregnancies, stillbirth pregnancy, prior ectopic pregnancy, prior miscarriage, and whether the mothers were breastfeeding after pregnancy affect their risk for ovarian cancer and their response to treatment.

Statistical analysis
We will utilize Fisher’s exact and chi-squared test to measure the contingency between the number and outcome of pregnancies and ovarian cancer incidence. In order to measure treatment response, we can find the contingency between the mortality and treatment data.