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Review
. 2019 Jul;28(7):1103-1116.
doi: 10.1158/1055-9965.EPI-18-1214. Epub 2019 May 1.

Association between Cigarette Smoking and Histotype-Specific Epithelial Ovarian Cancer: A Review of Epidemiologic Studies

Affiliations
Review

Association between Cigarette Smoking and Histotype-Specific Epithelial Ovarian Cancer: A Review of Epidemiologic Studies

Aili Zhou et al. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2019 Jul.

Abstract

Many studies have demonstrated that smoking can influence ovarian cancer risk and survival; however, the number of studies investigating this relationship according to histologic subtypes is limited. We conducted a review of epidemiologic research that assessed the role of smoking on ovarian cancer risk and survival after diagnosis, specifically capturing studies that discerned between various histologic subtypes of this disease. In the majority of studies, current smoking was associated with increased risk of mucinous cancer. There was also evidence of a decreased risk of clear cell and endometrioid histotypes. No significant association was observed between cigarette smoking and serous cancer. In the studies investigating the relationship between smoking and survival, all the studies reported an increased risk of mortality associated with smoking. Smoking appeared to be a risk factor for both ovarian cancer risk and mortality. Future studies need to investigate further a potential link between smoking and ovarian cancer by having a better assessment of exposure to smoking and having a larger number of participants with the ability to detect associations within rare histotypes.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest: No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flowchart of criteria for inclusion of literature on association between smoking and epithelial ovarian cancer risk and survival
Figure 2
Figure 2
Overall Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Risk Associated with Cigarette Smoking
Figure 3
Figure 3
Serous Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Risk Associated with Cigarette Smoking
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mucinous Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Risk Associated with Cigarette Smoking
Figure 5
Figure 5
Endometrioid Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Risk Associated with Cigarette Smoking

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