Background: Extensive literature indicates that aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are associated with reduced cancer incidence and mortality. For ovarian cancer, a pooled analysis of 12 case-control studies recently demonstrated a significantly reduced risk for regular aspirin use and a similar but non-significant reduced risk for non-aspirin NSAID use. However, studies specifically evaluating NSAIDs and ovarian cancer survival are absent from the published literature.

Purpose: To determine if aspirin and other NSAIDs are associated with ovarian cancer survival.

Methods: Ovarian cancer cases were identified from de-identified electronic medical records (EMR) from the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Ever use of aspirin or any NSAID was determined by MedEx, a natural language processing system designed to capture medication use from EMR. Linked tumor registry data was used to generate hazard ratios (HR) and confidence intervals (CI) for overall survival using Cox proportional hazards regression; covariates included age, race, stage of disease, histologic subtype, treatments received, and year of diagnosis.

Results: The majority of 1,147 confirmed ovarian cancer cases were Caucasian (87.0%), had serous histologic subtypes (53.6%), and late stage (III/IV, 50.0%) or stage unknown (29.3%) disease. Ovarian cancer cases with any aspirin use (207, 18.1%) had significantly longer overall survival in both unadjusted (HR: 0.56, 95% CI: 0.45-0.70) and adjusted analyses (HR: 0.59, 95% CI: 0.46-0.74). Similarly, ovarian cancer cases with any non-aspirin NSAID use (248, 21.6%) had significantly longer overall survival in both unadjusted (HR: 0.60, 95% CI: 0.48-0.74) and adjusted analyses (HR: 0.69, 95% CI: 0.54-0.88). Associations between any aspirin or other NSAID use (360, 31.4%) and longer ovarian cancer survival did not significantly differ by stage of disease (P-interaction=0.650), histologic subtype (P-interaction=0.076), or treatment with a platinum-based agent (P-interaction=0.069).

Conclusions: Indication of aspirin or non-aspirin NSAID use ascertained retrospectively from EMR was associated with improved overall ovarian cancer survival. Further evaluation, including timing and duration of use, are underway; replication of this association in additional study populations is needed.

Citation Format: Alicia Beeghly-Fadiel, Gwendolyn Holman, Samantha P. Stansel, Gretchen Edwards, Edward Baeg, Hannah Berke, Ryan J. Delahanty, Dineo Khabele. Aspirin, NSAIDS, and ovarian cancer survival from electronic medical records [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 10th Biennial Ovarian Cancer Research Symposium; Sep 8-9, 2014; Seattle, WA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2015;21(16 Suppl):Abstract nr POSTER-TECH-1103.