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Endometrial cancer (EC) is the fourth most frequent cancer in women in Europe, and as its incidence is increasing, prevention strategies gain further pertinence. Risk prediction models can be a useful tool for identifying women likely to benefit from targeted prevention measures. On the basis of data from 201,811 women (mostly aged 30-65 years) including 855 incident EC cases from eight countries in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort, a model to predict EC was developed. A step-wise model selection process was used to select confirmed predictive epidemiologic risk factors. Piece-wise constant hazard rates in 5-year age-intervals were estimated in a cause-specific competing risks model, five-fold-cross-validation was applied for internal validation. Risk factors included in the risk prediction model were body-mass index (BMI), menopausal status, age at menarche and at menopause, oral contraceptive use, overall and by different BMI categories and overall duration of use, parity, age at first full-term pregnancy, duration of menopausal hormone therapy and smoking status (specific for pre, peri- and post-menopausal women). These variables improved the discriminating capacity to predict risk over 5 years from 71% for a model based on age alone to 77% (overall C statistic), and the model was well-calibrated (ratio of expected to observed cases = 0.99). Our model could be used for the identification of women at increased risk of EC in Western Europe. To achieve an EC-risk model with general validity, a large-scale cohort-consortium approach would be needed to assess and adjust for population variation.

Original publication

DOI

10.1007/s10654-015-0030-9

Type

Journal article

Journal

European journal of epidemiology

Publication Date

01/2016

Volume

31

Pages

51 - 60

Addresses

Division of Cancer Epidemiology (C020), German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Im Neuenheimer Feld 581, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany. a.huesing@dkfz.de.

Keywords

Humans, Endometrial Neoplasms, Body Mass Index, Incidence, Risk Assessment, Risk Factors, Prospective Studies, Predictive Value of Tests, Menopause, Models, Biological, Adult, Aged, Middle Aged, Europe, Female