Pre- and Post-Diagnosis Diet Quality and Ovarian Cancer Survival

Background: Prior studies evaluating diet quality in relation to ovarian cancer survival are sparse, and to date none have assessed diet quality or diet-quality change after diagnosis.

Methods: In the prospective Ovarian cancer Prognosis And Lifestyle (OPAL) study, diet-quality scores were calculated using data from food frequency questionnaires completed pre-diagnosis (n = 650) and 12 months' post-diagnosis (n = 503). We used Cox proportional hazard models to estimate adjusted hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for the association between diet quality and survival.

Results: During the median follow-up of 4.4 years, 278 women died from ovarian cancer. There was no evidence of an association between diet quality pre- or post-diagnosis and progression-free, overall, or ovarian cancer–specific survival. No survival advantage was observed for women who had either improved their diet quality or who consumed a high-quality diet both before and 12 months after diagnosis.

Conclusions: Higher pre- and post-diagnosis diet quality was not associated with better survival outcomes in this cohort of women with ovarian cancer.

Impact: Diet quality is important for a range of health outcomes but may not improve survival after a diagnosis of ovarian cancer.