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Slone Epidemiology Unit, Boston University School of Medicine, Brookline, Massachusetts 02446 [L. R., J. R. P., R. S. R., P. F. C., S. S.]; Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, and Division of General Internal Medicine of the Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 [B. L. S.]; Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York 10021 [A. G. Z.]; and Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland 21201 [P. D. S.]
| Abstract |
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| Introduction |
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| Materials and Methods |
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Cases and Controls.
The cases were 780 women with primary ovarian cancer diagnosed within
the previous year who had no previous cancer. The pathology reports of
748 women indicated that the cancer was epithelial; 32 women for whom
the pathology report did not mention the type of ovarian cancer were
also included because 81% of ovarian cancers in the Case-Control
Surveillance Study for which the type is known are epithelial.
Two control groups were selected. Potential cancer controls were 2573 women admitted for any of several cancers diagnosed within the previous year that we judged were unrelated to analgesic use, who had no previous cancer, and who had at least one ovary. Among cases <40 years of age, the ratio of controls to cases exceeded 10:1, whereas the ratio was 4:1 or less in the older age groups; to reduce the excess of controls <40, the cases under 40 were frequency matched up to 4:1 with controls on 5-year age group, interview year, and study center. The final cancer control group comprised 2053 women with lung or other respiratory cancer (719), malignant melanoma (563), lymphoma (266), leukemia (249), bone and connective tissue cancer (188), or thyroid cancer (68). Potential noncancer controls were 4204 women who had been admitted for nonmalignant conditions judged to be unrelated to analgesic use, who had not had cancer, and who had at least one ovary. Cases <40 were frequency matched up to 4:1 with noncancer controls on 5-year age group, interview year, and study center. The final noncancer control group comprised 2570 women, of whom 1368 had been admitted for trauma and 1202 for acute infections.
The prevalence of acetaminophen use 1 day or more per week for at least 6 months that began at least 1 year before admission across five major diagnostic categories in the controls (respiratory cancer, lymphoma or leukemia, other cancer, trauma, and infection) was 5, 4, 3, 4, and 3%, respectively; the overall prevalence was 4% among all cancer controls and also 4% among all noncancer controls. The prevalence of NSAID use 1 day or more per week for at least 6 months beginning at least 1 year before admission was 9, 9, 11, 10, and 10%, respectively, across the five diagnostic categories; the overall rates were 9% among all cancer controls and 10% among all noncancer controls.
Drug Exposure.
Most use of analgesics is sporadic. We focused on regular use (at least
1 day per week for at least 6 months) because it is more likely to play
an etiological role and to be better remembered. We only considered use
that began at least 1 year before admission. We excluded women whose
only regular use was initiated in the year before admission because
such use would not have played an etiological role. In the analysis of
acetaminophen use, 1 case, 14 cancer controls, and 7 noncancer controls
who used acetaminophen at least 1 day per week for at least 6 months
only during the year before admission were excluded; in the analysis of
NSAID use, 2 cases, 16 cancer controls, and 20 noncancer controls were
excluded. These categories of drug use were not associated with the
risk of ovarian cancer.
Data Analysis.
Odds ratios were estimated for regular analgesic use relative to
nonregular use (the combined category of nonregular use and never use)
using unconditional multiple logistic regression (5)
.
Analgesic use varied by age, interview year, and study center, and we
included terms for these factors in the logistic regressions. Control
for other potential risk factors for ovarian cancer, including race,
parity, duration of oral contraceptive use, hysterectomy status, age at
menopause, and family history of ovarian cancer did not materially
alter the estimates. These factors were therefore not included in the
logistic regressions.
| Results |
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The analyses were repeated for a more intensive category of regular
use, 4 or more days per week for at least 6 months (Table 3)
. All odds ratios for acetaminophen use were compatible with 1.0. For
NSAID use, the odds ratios for 5 or more years of use were
statistically significant, 0.5 (95% CI, 0.20.9) derived with cancer
controls and 0.5 (95% CI, 0.30.9) derived with noncancer controls;
reduced odds ratios were observed across the four study centers. Also
statistically significant were the odds ratio for NSAID use that began
at least 10 years previously derived with cancer controls (0.5) and for
use that continued into the year before admission derived with
noncancer controls (0.6).
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For completeness, we compared the analgesic use of 176 cases of nonepithelial ovarian cancer to that of the 2053 cancer controls and the 2570 noncancer controls. The use of acetaminophen was too sparse for analysis. The odds ratios for NSAID use 1 day or more per week for at least 6 months and for use 4 days or more per week for at least 6 months ranged from 0.8 to 1.0 and were compatible with 1.0.
| Discussion |
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In response to the findings of Cramer et al. (1) , Rodriquez et al. (2) assessed data collected from 675,000 women in the Cancer Prevention Study II of the American Cancer Society. The use of one brand of acetaminophen (Tylenol) <30 times a month during the month before entry into the study (238 exposed cases) was unrelated to ovarian cancer mortality during 12 years of follow-up. For acetaminophen use 30 or more times a month (eight exposed cases), the relative risk was reduced, 0.55, but compatible with 1.0. There was no association of ovarian cancer mortality with the duration of acetaminophen use. Also in response to the results of Cramer et al. (1) , Moysich et al. (3) published an abstract with results of an assessment of analgesic use in a case-control study of 543 women with ovarian cancer and 1569 controls with nonendocrine-related malignancies. The case group was not confined to epithelial cancers. Neither use of acetaminophen nor use of NSAIDs 1 day or more per week for at least 6 months was significantly related to ovarian cancer risk; the odds ratios were 0.80 and 1.01, respectively. The odds ratios were smaller for use of acetaminophen seven or more times per week (0.63) and for 10 or more years of use (0.69), but the CIs included 1.0.
In the present study, acetaminophen use 1 day or more per week for at least 6 months that began 1 year or more previously was not associated with the risk of ovarian cancer; the odds ratio was 0.9 (95% CI, 0.61.4) derived with cancer controls and 1.0 (95% CI, 0.61.5) with noncancer controls. Odds ratio estimates for more intensive and longer duration use were also not statistically significant. There was no relation of risk to the timing of first or last use. For NSAID use 1 day or more per week for at least 6 months, the overall odds ratios were slightly reduced but compatible with 1.0. However, the odds ratios for use 4 days or more per week for at least 5 years were statistically significantly reduced, 0.5, based on comparisons to either cancer or noncancer controls, and these results were consistent across the study centers. Results for aspirin and nonaspirin NSAIDs were similar to those for NSAIDs overall. The results were unchanged when the main analyses were repeated for use that began 2 or more years previously, suggesting that the findings were not distorted by analgesic use taken for early symptoms of ovarian cancer.
The present study used cancer and noncancer control groups comprising women admitted for illnesses judged to be unrelated to regular analgesic use. The similarity of the prevalence of acetaminophen use and NSAID use across the diagnostic categories among the controls suggests that the control selection was unbiased. In addition, the odds ratio point estimates obtained separately with each control group for the more prevalent drug exposures were similar. Major potential risk factors for ovarian cancer were found not to confound the analyses.
We considered metastatic ovarian cancer separately because such cases would inevitably have been admitted to hospital and would, therefore, have been less likely to have been affected by selection bias. The point estimates of the odds ratio for acetaminophen use for cases of metastatic ovarian cancer were smaller than those for nonmetastatic cancer, although the estimates were compatible with a uniform estimate. For NSAID, use the odds ratios were also smaller in the metastatic cancer group. The differences may well have been attributable to chance. It could be postulated that the difference in the findings between metastatic and nonmetastatic cases is explained by selective admission of cases with earlier stage ovarian cancer who tended to use analgesics regularly. However, it is unlikely that admission would have been related to use of over-the-counter medications. Moreover, the distribution of physician visits in the previous year was quite similar for the metastatic and nonmetastatic cases. Previous studies did not carry out analyses according to the presence or absence of metastatic disease. In the study of Cramer et al. (1) , inverse associations with acetaminophen use were seen for both borderline and invasive ovarian cancer.
A major problem in studying analgesic use is inaccuracy in reporting. In the study of Cramer et al. (1) , participants were asked about the duration of use, age started, and frequency of use of over-the-counter acetaminophen, aspirin, and ibuprofen 1 day or more per week for at least 6 months. Major brand names were mentioned, but hundreds of products have been marketed in the past or are now on the market. In the Cancer Prevention Study II (2) , information was collected on the use of aspirin and of one brand of acetaminophen, Tylenol, during the month before entry to the study; the number of times in the month and the duration of use were recorded only for women who used the drugs in that month. No information was collected on use that might have ended before the month before entry, nor were data collected on drug use during the course of follow-up. Details of the methods used to ascertain acetaminophen and NSAID use in the case-control study of Moysich et al. (3) , published only as an abstract, are not available. The Case-Control Surveillance Study assesses the effects of many drugs (4) . Because it is not feasible to ask specifically about the thousands of drugs marketed now and in the past, histories of drug use are elicited by questions about indications for use, such as pain. For every episode of use, the drug name, date started, duration, and frequency of use are recorded. To a greater or lesser extent, all of the studies to date will have underascertained and misclassified the use of acetaminophen and NSAIDs. Misclassification, if random, would have tended to weaken real associations with ovarian cancer.
Using the same methods and the same database as in the present analysis, we found previously a strong statistically significant inverse association between recent regular aspirin use and the risk of large bowel cancer (8) , an association that has been confirmed in many subsequent studies (9 , 10) . However, the prevalence of regular and long duration aspirin use was appreciably greater than that of acetaminophen use, providing much more statistical power to assess the use of aspirin. Regular acetaminophen use has been uncommon until relatively recently. Studies with much larger numbers of long-term users than in those to date are required for an informative analysis of acetaminophen use in relation to ovarian cancer. Furthermore, future studies need to improve the ascertainment of the many drugs that contain acetaminophen and to improve the characterization of aspects of use.
In conclusion, the analyses conducted since the study of Cramer et al. (1) , including the present one, provide only weak support for an inverse association between acetaminophen use and epithelial ovarian cancer risk, although they are compatible with such an association. Data providing evidence of a biological mechanism for an inverse association are scanty. Although equivocal in terms of protection, the results to date indicate that there is no adverse effect of acetaminophen use on risk. For NSAID use, the present study raises the possibility of an inverse association with long-term use. This result could be attributable to chance or unidentified bias and requires confirmation. The sparse evidence available from other studies suggests no association of NSAID use with ovarian cancer risk. There are virtually no animal data that bear on the possibility of a protective effect of NSAIDs against ovarian cancer. Clearly, more biological and epidemiological data are needed to clarify the relation of use of acetaminophen and NSAIDs to risk of ovarian cancer.
| Acknowledgments |
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| Footnotes |
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1 Data collection was supported by Grant R01
CA45762 from the National Cancer Institute and Grant FD-U-000082 from
the Food and Drug Administration. The analyses for this report were
funded by McNeil Consumer Health Care, Fort Washington, PA 19034. ![]()
2 To whom requests for reprints should be
addressed, at Slone Epidemiology Unit, Boston University School of
Medicine, 1371 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02446. Phone:
(617) 734-6006; Fax: (617) 738-5119; E-mail: lrosenberg{at}slone.bu.edu ![]()
3 The abbreviations used are: NSAID, nonsteroidal
anti-inflammatory drug; CI, confidence interval. ![]()
Received 3/ 8/00; revised 6/21/00; accepted 6/28/00.
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