TUESDAY, Jan. 24 (HealthDay News) -- For patients with invasive epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC), BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations are associated with improved five-year survival, according to a study published in the Jan. 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Kelly L. Bolton, Ph.D., from the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues compared the survival of BRCA carriers and noncarriers with EOC, and investigated survival patterns for BRCA1 and BRCA2 carriers. Data were collected from 26 observational studies, including 909 cases of EOC in BRCA1 carriers, 304 cases in BRCA2 carriers, and 2,666 cases in noncarriers.
The investigators found that the five-year overall survival was 44, 52, and 36 percent in BRCA1 carriers, BRCA2 carriers, and noncarriers, respectively. Carriers of BRCA mutations had more favorable survival than noncarriers after adjustment for study and year of diagnosis. These differences in survival persisted after additional adjustment for age at diagnosis as well as stage, grade, and histology.
"Among patients with invasive EOC, having a germline mutation in BRCA1 or BRCA2 was associated with improved five-year overall survival. BRCA2 carriers had the best prognosis," the authors write.
Several authors disclosed financial ties to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.
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