Abstract A22: Synchronous ovarian and uterine cancers in US women, 2004-2015
Authors: Puckett Mary , Townsend Julie S. , Stewart Sherri L. 
Published: September 2020

Purpose: Ovarian and uterine cancers are the 5th and 6th leading causes of cancer death in US women and comprise over 77,000 of new cancer cases diagnosed each year. Synchronous primary tumors, or tumors diagnosed within one year of each other, in gynecologic cancers are rare. While case studies of synchronous ovarian and uterine cancers have been reported, limited evidence exists on the co-occurrence of this cancers at a population level. We aimed to assess the incidence of synchronous ovarian and uterine cancers in the United States, along with the demographic and tumor characteristics of the women diagnosed with synchronous cancers.

Methods: We analyzed incident cases of malignant epithelial ovarian and uterine cancers reported to population-based central cancer registries funded by CDC’s National Program of Cancer Registries (NPCR) or the NCI’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program (SEER) during the 2004-2015 time period. Cases reported only from death certificates or autopsy were excluded. We considered women to have a synchronous ovarian and uterine cancer if the diagnosis of the other cancer occurred within six months of the first primary ovarian or uterine cancer. We conducted a descriptive analysis examining demographic and clinical characteristics among women having only a first primary uterine or ovarian cancer compared to women with synchronous cancers.

Results: Between 2004-2015, 7,654 women were diagnosed with synchronous ovarian and uterine cancers. During that same time period, 183,284 women were diagnosed with primary ovarian cancer alone and 397,657 women were diagnosed with primary uterine cancer alone. Women with synchronous uterine and ovarian cancers were significantly younger than women diagnosed with only one cancer (33.71% vs. 14.77% under age 50, p&lt;0.001), most often lived in the Northeast and West than women with only one cancer (p&lt;0.001), and were more likely to live in metropolitan areas (85.79% vs. 83.8%, p&lt;0.001). Women with synchronous cancers were more often diagnosed during the 2004-2009 time period compared to later years of analysis. The most common histology for ovarian cancers was endometrioid in women diagnosed with synchronous tumors, which differed significantly from women diagnosed with only ovarian cancer (50.49% vs. 8.61%, p&lt;0.001). Additionally, most women with synchronous cancers were diagnosed with the second cancer within two months of the first cancer diagnosis.

Conclusion: Women diagnosed with synchronous ovarian and uterine cancers differed significantly from women diagnosed with only ovarian or uterine cancer for multiple demographic variables and tumor characteristics. This could suggest that women meeting these characteristics who are diagnosed with either ovarian or uterine cancer may benefit from assessment for presence of the other cancer at the time of diagnosis.

Citation Format: Mary Puckett, Julie S. Townsend, Sherri L. Stewart. Synchronous ovarian and uterine cancers in US women, 2004-2015 [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference on Advances in Ovarian Cancer Research; 2019 Sep 13-16, 2019; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2020;26(13_Suppl):Abstract nr A22.