Ovarian Cancer Series 02: What Causes Ovarian Cancer? Understanding the Risk Factors
If you have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, or if someone in your family has had the disease, one of the first questions you may ask is, “Why did ovarian cancer develop?” You may wonder whether it was related to lifestyle, family history, pregnancy, hormones, or something you could have done differently. For most ovarian cancers, however, there is no single identifiable cause. Cancer develops through a complex combination of genetic, biological, reproductive, and other factors, and it is often impossible to determine exactly why ovarian cancer developed in one particular person. This is why it is important to distinguish between a cause and a risk factor . It is also important to recognize that much of what we know about ovarian cancer risk factors comes from research on epithelial ovarian cancer , the most common type of ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer includes several different tumor types, and not every risk factor applies equally to all of them. A Risk Factor Is Not the S...