Disparities in ovarian and uterine cancer in relation to the development of novel therapeutics.
Ovarian cancer has always been shown to be the gynaecological cancer most likely to cause death. With the onset of targeted therapy, this no longer appears to be the case. As this article shows it is now more likely that women in the US will die of uterine cancer.
The number of deaths from ovarian and uterine cancer were compared for the periods 2001-2019, and 2015-2024, with estimated mortality for the latter period. During this time ovarian cancer deaths decreased by 1.1% per annum, and uterine cancer deaths increased by 3%.
Total numbers of deaths per annum for ovarian cancer at about 12750, are less in 2024 than for uterine cancer, being 13250. This is a reversal of previous ratios of 1.4 to 1.
It is speculated that this change is due to improved treatment for ovarian cancer. New targets for personalised treatment have led to much interest by pharmaceutical companies in developing potentially highly profitable new treatments. Clinical trials of treatment of ovarian cancer are four times the number of those for uterine cancer. Uterine cancer is common for black women. This too is a thought to be a factor for the disparity in clinical trials.
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