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Reproductive factors and ovarian cancer risk in Jewish BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers (United States)

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Abstract

Objective: To determine whether oral contraceptive (OC) use, childbearing, breastfeeding and tubal ligation differ between ovarian cancer cases with and without a BRCA1/2 mutation. Methods: A case-only study of 242 Jewish women with invasive epithelial ovarian cancer. Women were genotyped for three Ashkenazi founder mutations (185delAG and 5382insC in BRCA1 and 6174delT in BRCA2). We obtained data on OC use, childbearing, breastfeeding, gynecologic surgeries and other reproductive factors from each woman. We compared the frequencies of these risk factors in carriers and non-carriers using unconditional logistic-regression, controlling for other covariates. Results: Among the 242 cases, 64 (26.4%) carried one of the BRCA1 founder mutations, and 31 (12.8%) carried the BRCA2 mutation. Although there were no differences in the percent of nulliparous women between carriers and non-carriers, parous BRCA1 carriers reported fewer live births than non-carriers (average of 2.1 versus 2.5 live births, OR = 0.61, 95%CI = 0.39–0.95, adjusted for age at diagnosis, tubal ligation and duration of OC use). Carriers and non-carriers did not differ in their history of breastfeeding, or in their lifetime use of OCs. BRCA1 carriers were more likely than non-carriers to have had a tubal ligation (25.0 versus 10.2%, OR = 3.67, 95%CI = 1.55–8.70, adjusted for age at diagnosis, number of live births and OC duration). Conclusions: In general, OC use, childbearing and breastfeeding do not differ between BRCA1/2 carriers and non-carriers with ovarian cancer. However, the effects of tubal ligation may differ between BRCA1 carriers and non-carriers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh, 516A Parran Hall, Pittsburgh, PA, 15261, USA

    Francesmary Modugno

  2. Centre for Research on Women's Health, Women's College Hospital, University of Toronto, USA

    Roxana Moslehi, Marie-Pierre Dube & Steven A. Narod

  3. Department of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Roberta B. Ness & Steven Belle

  4. Department of Clinical Epidemiology, University of Pennsylvania, USA

    Deborah Brooks Nelson

  5. Department of Pathology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, USA

    Jeffrey A. Kant

  6. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, USA

    James E. Wheeler

  7. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Northwestern University Medical School, USA

    Aimee Wonderlick & David Fishman

  8. Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, USA

    Beth Karlan

  9. Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Yale University, USA

    Harvey Risch

  10. Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, USA

    Daniel W. Cramer

Authors
  1. Francesmary Modugno
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  2. Roxana Moslehi
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  3. Roberta B. Ness
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  4. Deborah Brooks Nelson
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  5. Steven Belle
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  6. Jeffrey A. Kant
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  7. James E. Wheeler
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  8. Aimee Wonderlick
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  9. David Fishman
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  10. Beth Karlan
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  11. Harvey Risch
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  12. Daniel W. Cramer
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  13. Marie-Pierre Dube
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  14. Steven A. Narod
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Correspondence to Francesmary Modugno.

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Modugno, F., Moslehi, R., Ness, R.B. et al. Reproductive factors and ovarian cancer risk in Jewish BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers (United States). Cancer Causes Control 14, 439–446 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024932427503

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024932427503

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