abstract: Shorter telomere length is associated with increased ovarian cancer risk in both familial and sporadic cases.

Shorter telomere length is associated with increased ovarian cancer risk in both familial and sporadic cases.:

J Med Genet. 2012 Apr 6;

Abstract

Background
Alterations in telomere maintenance mechanisms leading to short telomeres underlie different genetic disorders of ageing and cancer predisposition syndromes. It is known that short telomeres and subsequent genomic instability contribute to malignant transformation, and it is therefore likely that people with shorter telomeres are at higher risk for different types of cancer. Recently, the authors demonstrated that the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 are modifiers of telomere length (TL) in familial breast cancer. The present study analysed TL in peripheral blood leucocytes of hereditary and sporadic ovarian cancer cases, as well as in female controls, to evaluate whether TL contributes to ovarian cancer risk.

Methods
TL was measured by quantitative PCR in 178 sporadic and 168 hereditary ovarian cases (46 BRCA1, 12 BRCA2, and 110 BRCAX) and compared to TL in 267 controls.

Results
Both sporadic and hereditary cases showed significantly shorter age adjusted TLs than controls. Unconditional logistic regression analysis revealed an association between TL and ovarian cancer risk with a significant interaction with age (p<0.001). Risk was higher in younger women and progressively decreased with age, with the highest OR observed in women under 30 years of age.

Conclusion
These findings indicate that TL could be a risk factor for early onset ovarian cancer.

(re: statistics) Comparison of methods for calculating relative survival in population-based studies

Comparison of methods for calculating relative survival in population-based studies: Publication year: 2012

Source:Cancer Epidemiology, Volume 36, Issue 1


Background: 

It is vital that unbiased estimates of relative survival are estimated and reported by cancer registries. A single figure of relative survival is often required to make reporting simpler. This can be obtained by pooling all ages or, more commonly, by using age-standardisation. The various methods for providing a single figure estimate of relative survival can give very different estimates.

Methods:

The problem is illustrated through an example using Finnish thyroid cancer data. The differences are further explored through a simulation study that investigates the effect of age on the estimates of relative survival.

Results: 

The example highlights that in practice the all-age estimates from the various methods can be substantially different (up to 6 percentage units at 15 years of follow-up). The simulation study confirms the finding that differing estimates for the all-age estimates of relative survival are obtained. Performing age-standardisation makes the methods more comparable and results in better estimation of the true net survival.

Conclusions: 

The all-age estimates of relative survival rarely give an appropriate estimate of net survival. We feel that modelling or stratifying by age when calculating relative survival is vitally important as the lack of homogeneity in the cohort of patients leads to potentially biased estimates. We feel that the methods using modelling provide a greater flexibility than life-table based approaches. The flexible parametric approach does not require an arbitrary splitting of the time-scale, which makes it more computationally efficient. It also has the advantage of easily being extended to incorporate time-dependent effects.

Biomedcentral: open access - Biomarker robustness reveals the PDGF network as driving disease outcome in ovarian cancer patients in multiple studies

link:    ABSTRACT and open text PDF
Background:
Ovarian cancer causes more deaths than any other gynecological cancer.
Identifying the molecular mechanisms that drive disease progress in ovarian cancer is a critical step in providing therapeutics, improving diagnostics, and affiliating clinical behavior with disease etiology. Identification of molecular interactions that stratify prognosis is key in
facilitating a clinical-molecular perspective.

Results:  
The Cancer Genome Atlas has recently made available the molecular characteristics of more than 500 patients......

Blogger's Note: see also - The Cancer Genome Atlas completes detailed ovarian cancer analysis  NCI Press Release (2011)

CONCLUSIONS
"..........Over the past few decades, different genes have been used, with greater or lesser success, as biomarkers for prognostics. In the work presented here, by performing genome-wide sequential
analyses across all genes and across all pathways, starting with TCGA and validating in two additional datasets, we saw how the single-gene approach fails to stratify patients robustly into prognostic groups.


"Our results demonstrate that pathway interactions are either associated with improved prognosis by "helping" the pathway counter the tumor, or with poor prognosis by "breaking down" the pathway's normal activity. Through better understanding of the pathway mechanisms and the interactions that undergo changes, we may find targets for new treatments. The fact that the pathway we identified did not correlate with age or tumor diameter and was found in all
three datasets strengthens the hypothesis that this pathway is a core mechanism of the disease."

open access: Whole Genome Sequences of a Male and Female Supercentenarian, Ages Greater than 114 Years | Frontiers in Genetics of Aging

Why Some People Live to 110 - Drugs.com MedNews

"......In what they describe as a first-of-a-kind study, the researchers analyzed the whole genome sequences of a man and a woman who lived past the age of 114 and found that they had as many disease-associated genes as other people.
For example, the man had 37 genetic mutations associated with increased risk for colon cancer....."

(no abstract) How Surgeon Age Affects Surveillance After Curative-Intent Primary Treatment for Ovarian Carcinoma

How Surgeon Age Affects Surveillance After Curative-Intent Primary Treatment for Ovarian Carcinoma

A.Y. Patel1, F. Gao2, D.G. Mutch2, R.K. Gibb2, K.S. Virgo3, F.E. Johnson1

18.2

No abstract is available. To read the body of this article, please view the Full Text online.

1 Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, MO

2 Washington University, Saint Louis, MO

3 American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA

PII: S0022-4804(10)01509-X

doi:10.1016/j.jss.2010.11.585

abstract: The Impact of Age on the Treatment and Survival of Ovarian Cancer Patients

Purpose: Although a significant number of patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer are over the age of 65, these patients are less likely to receive standard therapy and are underrepresented in clinical studies. The objective of our study was to evaluate the treatment and survival of patients over the age of 65 years.

Cancer Pain: An Age-Based Analysis - 2010 - Pain Medicine abstract

The effect of age on the tolerability of intraperitoneal chemotherapy, complication rate, and survival in patients with ovarian cancer

Conclusions

Although elderly patients appear to tolerate fewer cycles of IP chemotherapy, they do not have higher objective complication rates or impaired PFS compared to younger patients. Age alone should not limit access to IP chemotherapy.

Sword of damocles cutting through the life stages of women with ovarian cancer.

Conclusions:
Age and development stage are key determinants of the needs and concerns of women with ovarian cancer.Interpretation: Age and development stage should be considered when developing an individualized plan of care. Because recurrence is common among this population, the fear of death exists regardless of age and should be explored by nurses, particularly during periods of remission.

How Does Older Age Influence Oncologists' Cancer Management?

Conclusions. 
Advanced age can deter oncologists from choosing intensive cancer therapy, even if patients are highly functional and lack comorbidities. Education on tailoring cancer treatment and a greater use of comprehensive geriatric assessment may reduce cancer undertreatment in the geriatric population.

full access: Crude and Age-Specific Incidence Rate Patterns for Histopathologic Subtypes of Ovarian Cancer in Iran

abstract and free full text: How old is this mutation? - a study of three Ashkenazi Jewish founder mutations

The three mutations analyzed were MSH2*1906 G->C, APC*I1307K, and BRCA2*6174delT.

"Mutation age estimates (averages):
16.8 generations for MSH2
106 generations for I1037K
90 generations for 6174delT

The role of cytoreductive surgery for non-genital tract metastatic tumors to the ovaries.

Abstract


OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate prognostic factors of patients with metastases to the ovaries from non-genital organs.
STUDY DESIGN: From September 1994 to December 2006, 158 patients with pathologically confirmed metastatic tumors to the ovaries at Samsung Medical Center (SMC) were included in this study. The data were obtained from the patients' medical records and pathology reports.
RESULTS: The primary tumor origin was mostly stomach (73 cases) and colon (61 cases). Krukenberg tumor (pathologically proven signet ring cell carcinoma) was found in 34 cases: stomach (25), colon (2), appendix (1), and unknown (6). ....However, age, bilateral tumors, chronology of diagnosis and mass size did not affect survival.
CONCLUSION: Cytoreductive surgery and post-operative adjuvant chemotherapy had a beneficial effect on survival in selected patients.

In research: Medical News: AACR: Urinary Markers May Flag Ovarian Cancer - in Meeting Coverage, AACR from MedPage Today

Note: in research

"WASHINGTON -- A combination of patient age and urinary biomarkers predicted a 95% probability of ovarian cancer, according to a study reported here....."