Association of Anti-Mullerian Hormone, Follicle-Stimulating Hormone and Inhibin B with Risk of Ovarian Cancer in the Janus Serum Bank

Background:Reproductive factors, including parity, breastfeeding and contraceptive use affect lifetime ovulatory cycles and cumulative exposure to gonadotropins and are associated with ovarian cancer. To understand the role of ovulation-regulating hormones in the etiology of ovarian cancer, we prospectively analyzed the association of Anti-Mullerian Hormone, Follicle Stimulating Hormone and Inhibin B with ovarian cancer risk. Methods:Our study included 370 women from the Janus Serum Bank, including 54 Type 1 and 82 Type 2 invasive epithelial ovarian cancers and 49 borderline tumors and 185 age-matched controls. We used conditional logistic regression to assess the relationship between hormones and risk of ovarian cancer overall and by subtype (Type 1 and 2). Results:Inhibin B was associated with increased risk of ovarian cancer overall (OR 1.97 95% CI 1.14-3.39, ptrend 0.05) and with type 1 ovarian (OR 3.10, 95% CI 1.04-9.23, ptrend 0.06). FSH was not associated with ovarian cancer risk overall but higher FSH was associated with type 2 ovarian cancers (OR 2.78, 95% CI 1.05-7.38). AMH was not associated with ovarian cancer risk. Conclusions:FSH and Inhibin B may be associated with increased risk in different ovarian cancer subtypes, suggesting that gonadotropin exposure may influence risk of ovarian cancer differently across subtypes. Impact:Associations between prospectively collected AMH, FSH and inhibin B levels with risk of ovarian cancer provide novel insight on the influence of pre-menopausal markers of ovarian reserve and gonadotropin signaling. Heterogeneity of inhibin B and FSH effects in different tumor types may be informative of tumor etiology.