PROFILES OF WOMEN AGE 30-39 AND AGE LESS-THAN 30 WITH EPITHELIAL OVARIAN-CANCER

Objective: To study a group Of women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer at a young age (less than 40). Methods: Tumor registry data we re analyzed with respect to age at diagnosis, stage, grade, frequency of nulligravidity, and family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Fre quencies were analyzed using contingency tables, and survival distribu tions were analyzed according to the method of Kaplan and Meier. Multi variate survival analysis was performed with the Cox method. Results: We found significantly higher frequencies of low-grade tumors (90 vers us 37%; P = .0003, chi2 test) and early-stage tumors (45 versus 17%; P = .03, Fisher exact test) in women less than 30 at the time of diagno sis (very young patients) than in those between 30-39. We also found a significant (P = .017, Breslow statistic) survival advantage for the very young women. Multivariate analysis demonstrated tumor grade as th e independent variable for survival. Conclusion: These findings suppor t the concept of a preclinical phase of epithelial carcinoma and show that young women may derive substantial benefit from ovarian cancer sc reening programs.