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

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 (AMH), follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), and inhibin B with ovarian cancer risk.

Our study included 370 women from the Janus Serum Bank, including 54 type I and 82 type II invasive epithelial ovarian cancers, 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 (types I and II).

Inhibin B was associated with increased risk of ovarian cancer overall [OR, 1.97; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.14–3.39; P_trend = 0.05] and with type I ovarian (OR, 3.10; 95% CI, 1.04–9.23; P_trend = 0.06). FSH was not associated with ovarian cancer risk overall, but higher FSH was associated with type II ovarian cancers (OR, 2.78; 95% CI, 1.05–7.38). AMH was not associated with ovarian cancer risk.

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.

Associations between prospectively collected AMH, FSH, and inhibin B levels with risk of ovarian cancer provide novel insight on the influence of premenopausal markers of ovarian reserve and gonadotropin signaling. Heterogeneity of inhibin B and FSH effects in different tumor types may be informative of tumor etiology.