The Effects of External Factors on Ovarian Cancer

One of the most threatening gynaecological cancers is ovarian cancer. This study evaluates the external factors that can help in increasing or decreasing the risk of ovarian cancer and increase or decrease in survival rates of people who have ovarian cancer. Throughout the study, 39 studies were gone through to come up with conclusions. It was understood that external factors do impact these chances.

The study focuses on various factors including - occupation, dietary choices, caffeine intake, smoking habits and pollution. However, the impact varied based of many factors which were not initially considered. Such as histological subtype - for example, while smoking increased the risk of mucinous cancer, it decreased or had no association with clear cell cancer. It also varied based of the timing of the factor evaluated. Such as, the increased the risk of serous cancer only for former smokers. Additionally, a generalised factor also could not be considered. As found, while air pollution or water pollution is said to increase the risks and mortality, our study further evaluated which particular pollutants caused this increase in the risks.

This research was conducted to further our knowledge about ovarian cancer and help people take the preventive measures required. It is important that further research should be conducted to create a better understanding as this research to left us with few unanswered questions, such as the true impact of smoking on endometroid cancer. However, there were clear trends observed such as the increased risk of smoking to mucinous cancer and the increased risk of ovarian cancer due to PM2.5.