Joellen M. Schildkraut

BACKGROUND: Non-hormonal intrauterine devices (IUDs) create an inflammatory uterine environment while oral contraceptives (OC) suppress ovulation and have different associations with ovarian cancer risk. We have evaluated the associations o…

BACKGROUND: Prognosis after a diagnosis of invasive epithelial ovarian cancer is poor. Some studies have suggested modifiable behaviors, like diet, are associated with survival but the evidence is inconsistent. OBJECTIVES: This study aims …

BACKGROUND: Ovarian high-grade serous carcinomas (HGSC) comprise four distinct molecular subtypes based on mRNA expression patterns, with differential survival. Understanding risk factor associations is important to elucidate the etiology o…

To identify credible causal risk variants (CCVs) associated with different histotypes of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), we performed genome-wide association analysis for 470,825 genotyped and 10,163,797 imputed SNPs in 25,981 EOC cases an…

Limited estimates exist on risk factors for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) in Asian, Hispanic, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander women. Participants in this study included 1734 Asian (n = 785 case and 949 control participants), 266 Nati…

IMPORTANCE: Frequent aspirin use is associated with reduced ovarian cancer risk, but it is unknown whether genetic factors modify this association. Understanding effect modifiers is important given that any use of aspirin for ovarian cancer…

BACKGROUND: An association was observed between an inflammation-related risk score (IRRS) and worse overall survival (OS) among a cohort of mostly White women with invasive epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). Herein, we evaluated the associati…

AbstractBackground: Comorbidities can affect survival of ovarian cancer patients by influencing treatment efficacy. However, little evidence exists on the association between individual concurrent comorbidities and prognosis in ovarian canc…

AbstractBackground: Comorbidities can affect survival of ovarian cancer patients by influencing treatment efficacy. However, little evidence exists on the association between individual concurrent comorbidities and prognosis in ovarian canc…

OBJECTIVE: The presence of macroscopic residual disease after primary cytoreductive surgery (PCS) is an important factor influencing survival for patients with high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC). More research is needed to identify fac…

BACKGROUND: The role of ovulation in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) is supported by the consistent protective effects of parity and oral contraceptive use. Whether these factors protect through anovulation alone remains unclear. We explore…

Our objective was to test whether p53 expression status is associated with survival for women diagnosed with the most common ovarian carcinoma histotypes (high-grade serous carcinoma [HGSC], endometrioid carcinoma [EC], and clear cell carci…

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate associations between endometriosis and uterine leiomyomas with ovarian cancer risk by race and the effect of hysterectomy on these associations. METHODS: We used data from four case-control studies and two case-contr…

BACKGROUND: Known risk alleles for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) account for approximately 40% of the heritability for EOC. Copy number variants (CNVs) have not been investigated as EOC risk alleles in a large population cohort. METHODS:…

BACKGROUND: There is suggestive evidence that inflammation is related to ovarian cancer survival. However, more research is needed to identify inflammation-related factors that are associated with ovarian cancer survival and to determine th…

PURPOSE: Frequent aspirin use has been associated with reduced ovarian cancer risk, but no study has comprehensively assessed for effect modification. We leveraged harmonized, individual-level data from 17 studies to examine the association…

Polygenic risk scores (PRS) for epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) have the potential to improve risk stratification. Joint estimation of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) effects in models could improve predictive performance over standard…

Endometriosis is a risk factor for epithelial ovarian cancer; however, whether this risk extends to all invasive histological subtypes or borderline tumours is not clear. We undertook an international collaborative study to assess the assoc…

BACKGROUND: Combined oral contraceptive use is associated with a decreased risk of invasive epithelial ovarian cancer (ovarian cancer). There is suggestive evidence of an inverse association between progestin-only contraceptive use and ovar…

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the association between hysterectomy and ovarian cancer, and to understand how hormone therapy (HT) use and endometriosis affect this association. METHODS: We conducted a pooled analysis of self-reported data from 11…

BACKGROUND: Parity is associated with decreased risk of invasive ovarian cancer; however, the relationship between incomplete pregnancies and invasive ovarian cancer risk is unclear. This relationship was examined using 15 case-control stud…

Family history (FH) of ovarian cancer and breast cancer are well-established risk factors for ovarian cancer, but few studies have examined this association in African American (AA) and white women by histotype. We assessed first- and secon…

BACKGROUND: The causes of racial disparities in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) incidence remain unclear. Differences in the prevalence of ovarian cancer risk factors may explain disparities in EOC incidence among African American (AA) and …

IMPORTANCE: Breastfeeding has been associated with a reduced risk of epithelial ovarian cancer in multiple studies, but others showed no association. Whether risk reduction extends beyond that provided by pregnancy alone or differs by histo…

Women of African ancestry have lower incidence of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) yet worse survival compared to women of European ancestry. We conducted a genome-wide association study in African ancestry women with 755 EOC cases, includin…