Ovarian cancer incidence in the United States, 1992-1999.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this epidemiological study was to report histology-specific age-adjusted ovarian cancer incidence rates that were standardized to the recently adopted year 2000 United States standard population.

METHODS: We utilized data gathered from eleven population-based cancer registries of the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute for the years 1992 through 1999. Our analyses included data on 23,484 microscopically confirmed cases of primary malignant ovarian cancer that were diagnosed in women residing in the eleven SEER registries.

RESULTS: We categorized the 117 different histologies that were diagnosed in the 23,484 ovarian cancer cases into ten major classifications. The overall age-adjusted incidence rate for all ovarian cancer cases was 16.23 cases per 100,000 women. Epithelial tumors displayed the highest age-adjusted incidence rate (15.48), followed by germ cell tumors (0.41), sex cord-stromal tumors (0.20), and all other miscellaneous ovarian tumors (0.13). Serous epithelial tumors were the most commonly observed epithelial group (6.77 cases per 100,000 women), followed by other miscellaneous epithelial tumors (3.76), mucinous epithelial tumors (2.22), endometrioid epithelial tumors (2.11), and clear cell epithelial tumors (0.64). Notable differences were observed in the age-adjusted incidence rates for White and Black women.

CONCLUSIONS: Age-adjusted incidence rates of ovarian cancer vary by histology. This is the first study to standardize histology-specific age-adjusted incidence rates of ovarian cancer to the new 2000 United States standard population.