Worldwide comparison of ovarian cancer survival: Histological group and stage at diagnosis (CONCORD-2)

 BioMed Research International
Volume 2014 (2014), Article ID 934261, 11 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/934261

Review ArticleRecent Concepts of Ovarian Carcinogenesis: Type I and Type II

 Type I ovarian tumors, where precursor lesions in the ovary have clearly been described, include endometrioid, clear cell, mucinous, low grade serous, and transitional cell carcinomas, while type II tumors, where such lesions have not been described clearly and tumors may develop de novo from the tubal and/or ovarian surface epithelium, comprise high grade serous carcinomas, undifferentiated carcinomas, and carcinosarcomas.

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Worldwide comparison of ovarian cancer survival: Histological group and stage at diagnosis (CONCORD-2)

Highlights

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Survival from ovarian cancer depends on the morphological subtype of the tumour.

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Type I epithelial tumours have much higher survival than type II tumours.

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Survival from sex cord-stromal tumours is the highest of the subtypes.

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Objective

Ovarian cancer comprises several histological groups with widely differing levels of survival. We aimed to explore international variation in survival for each group to help interpret international differences in survival from all ovarian cancers combined. We also examined differences in stage-specific survival.

Methods

The CONCORD programme is the largest population-based study of global trends in cancer survival, including data from 60 countries for 695,932 women (aged 15–99 years) diagnosed with ovarian cancer during 1995–2009. We defined six histological groups: type I epithelial, type II epithelial, germ cell, sex cord-stromal, other specific non-epithelial and non-specific morphology, and estimated age-standardised 5-year net survival for each country by histological group. We also analysed data from 67 cancer registries for 233,659 women diagnosed from 2001 to 2009, for whom information on stage at diagnosis was available. We estimated age-standardised 5-year net survival by stage at diagnosis (localised or advanced).

Results

Survival from type I epithelial ovarian tumours for women diagnosed during 2005–09 ranged from 40 to 70%. Survival from type II epithelial tumours was much lower (20–45%). Survival from germ cell tumours was higher than that of type II epithelial tumours, but also varied widely between countries. Survival for sex-cord stromal tumours was higher than for the five other groups. Survival from localised tumours was much higher than for advanced disease (80% vs. 30%).

Conclusions

There is wide variation in survival between histological groups, and stage at diagnosis remains an important factor in ovarian cancer survival. International comparisons of ovarian cancer survival should incorporate histology.