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The resemblance between fallopian tube cells and serous borderline ovarian tumors (BOTs) suggests a potential origin link, with salpingitis proposed as a contributing factor in the pathogenesis of BOT. This study aimed to explore the potential association between pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and the risk of developing BOT. A national population-based case–control study in Sweden included women with BOT between 1999 and 2020 and 10 matched controls. Data from nationwide registers were analyzed using conditional logistic regression, adjusting for age, residential district, educational level and parity. Among 4782 cases and 45,167 controls, 2.0% of cases and 1.3% of controls had a history of PID. Previous PID was associated with an increased risk of BOT overall (aOR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.19–1.85). Significant association was observed with serous tumors (aOR, 1.76; 95% CI, 1.36–2.29), while not with mucinous tumors (aOR, 0.95; 95% CI, 0.60–1.49). A dose–response relationship between number of PID episodes and serous BOT risk was noted (Ptrend <.001). This study demonstrates that PID is associated with increased risk of serous BOT, with a dose response relationship. The study highlights the potential serious implications of upper reproductive tract infections and inflammation. This underscores the need for further investigation of biological mechanisms and possible impact of PID on serous BOT development.

Introduction: The evidence on complication rates after gynecological surgery is based on multiple types of studies, and the level of evidence is generally low. We aimed to validate the registration of complications in the Swedish National Quality Register of Gynecological Surgery - GynOp, by cross-linkage to multiple national registers. 

Material and methods: A national register-based study using prospectively collected data was conducted, including women who had surgery of the uterus or adnexa for benign indications from January 1, 2017, to December 31, 2020. In Sweden, complications after gynecological surgery are registered in GynOp, and if the complication has rendered any interaction with healthcare, also in national health registers. The GynOp register, the National Patient Register, the Prescribed Drugs Register and the Cause of Death Register were cross-linked. Complications in GynOp and complications according to ICD10 were analyzed, as well as cause of death if occurring within three months of surgery and prescription of antibiotics ≤30 days. Comparisons between the registries were descriptive. 

Results: During the study period 32 537 surgeries were performed, whereof 26 214 (80.6%) minimally invasive. Complications were reported in GynOp for 569 women (1.7%) at surgery, 1045 (3.2%) while admitted, and 3868 (13.7%) from discharge to three months after surgery. In comparison, according to the Patient Register 2254 women (6.9%) had postoperative complications within three months of discharge (difference of 6.8 percentage points (95% confidence interval 7.2, 6.2)). Furthermore, 4117 individuals (12.7%) had a prescription of antibiotics ≤30 days which could indicate a postoperative infection. The rates of hemorrhage, wound dehiscence and thrombosis were comparable between GynOp and the Patient Register while diagnoses not leading to contact with specialized care had higher rates in the quality register. The coverage of complications was 79.1% in GynOp and 46.1% in the Patient Register, using the total number of complications from both registers as the denominator. 

Conclusion: A higher frequency of complications is captured in GynOp than in the National Patient Register. Patient reported outcomes assessed by a physician are beneficial in identifying complications indicating the importance of structured pre-defined follow-up over a set period. 

Background: Diagnosis of an adnexal mass might be a sign of ovarian cancer, with an overall poor prognosis. This study aimed to explore women’s experiences and perceptions of facing ovarian surgery due to an adnexal mass, and expectations on life after surgery.

Methods: Individual in-depth interviews with 15 women facing ovarian surgery due to an adnexal mass. Interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis.

Results: An overarching theme, From symptoms to surgery–a pathway through uncertainty and hope, was identified. The theme was made up of three categories; I. The road to diagnosis, II. Striving for information and guidance, and III. Balancing emotions of hope and fear. The period between discovering the adnexal mass and surgery was often described as chaotic and difficult to manage. However, the diagnostic procedures were mostly described as timely and efficient, and participants felt safe and cared for. Person-centred care was considered crucial when being in this vulnerable situation, and the nurse navigator was described as a key person to approach for any queries. While participants expressed overall satisfaction with the information provided by health professionals, some reported a lack of information regarding the surgery’s potential impact on hormonal production and sexuality. Restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic forced participants to attend healthcare visits alone, and some wished that health professionals had taken more responsibility for informing their relatives. Many participants focused on the positive aspects of the information gained about the adnexal mass, and that the entire situation gave perspective of what was important in life.

Conclusions: Waiting for surgery on a possibly malignant adnexal mass can be very stressful, however person-centred care and the guidance of a nurse navigator can make the process more manageable. To improve women’s experience, health professionals may involve relatives more often and make sure to inform of potential hormonal loss and sexuality after ovarian surgery.

Introduction: Salpingitis is caused by ascending microbes from the lower reproductive tract and contributes to tubal factor infertility, ectopic pregnancy, and chronic pelvic pain. The aim of this study was to analyze if the risk for complications and dissatisfaction after hysterectomy and adnexal surgery was increased in women reporting previous salpingitis.

Material and methods: This is an observational cohort study including women undergoing gynecologic surgery from 1997 to 2020, registered in the Swedish National Quality Register of Gynecologic Surgery (GynOp). Patient-reported previous salpingitis was the exposure. Complications up to 8 weeks and satisfaction at 1 year postoperatively were the outcomes. Multivariable logistic regression and ordinal regression were performed. Results were adjusted for potential confounders including age, body mass index, smoking and year of procedure as well as endometriosis and previous abdominal surgery. Multiple imputation was used to handle missing data.

Results: In this study, 61 222 women were included, of whom 5636 (9.2%) women reported a previous salpingitis. There was an increased risk for women reporting previous salpingitis in both the unadjusted and fully adjusted models to have complications within 8 weeks of surgery (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 1.22, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14–1.32). The highest odds ratios were found for bowel injury (aOR 1.62, 95% CI 1.29–2.03), bladder injury (aOR 1.52, 95% CI 1.23–1.58), and postoperative pain (aOR 1.37, 95% CI 1.22–1.54). Women exposed to salpingitis were also more likely to report a lower level of satisfaction 1 year after surgery compared with unexposed women (aOR 0.87, 95% CI 0.81–0.92).

Conclusions: Self-reported salpingitis appears to be a risk factor for complications and dissatisfaction after gynecologic surgery. This implies that known previous salpingitis should be included in the risk assessment before gynecologic procedures.

Background: Epithelial ovarian cancer is an insidious disease, and women are often diagnosed when the disease is beyond curative treatment. Accordingly, identifying modifiable risk factors is of paramount importance. Inflammation predisposes an individual to cancer in various organs, but whether pelvic inflammatory disease is associated with an increased risk of epithelial ovarian cancer has not been fully determined.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate a possible association between clinically verified pelvic inflammatory disease and the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer.

Study Design: In this national population-based case-control study, all women in Sweden diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer between 1999 and 2020 and 10 controls for each were identified, matched for age and residential district. Using several Swedish nationwide registers, data on previous pelvic inflammatory disease and potential confounding factors (age, parity, educational level, and previous gynecologic surgery) were retrieved. Adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated using conditional logistic regression. Histotype-specific analyses were performed for the subgroup of women diagnosed with epithelial ovarian cancer between 2015 and 2020. Moreover, hormonal contraceptives and menopausal hormone therapy were adjusted in addition to the aforementioned confounders.

Results: This study included 15,072 women with epithelial ovarian cancer and 141,322 controls. Most women (9102 [60.4%]) had serous carcinoma. In a subgroup of cases diagnosed between 2015 and 2020, high-grade serous carcinoma (2319 [60.0%]) was identified. A total of 168 cases (1.1%) and 1270 controls (0.9%) were diagnosed with pelvic inflammatory disease. Previous pelvic inflammatory disease was associated with an increased risk of epithelial ovarian cancer (adjusted odds ratio, 1.39; 95% confidence interval, 1.17–1.66) and serous carcinoma (adjusted odds ratio, 1.46; 95% confidence interval, 1.18–1.80) for the entire study population. For the subgroup of women diagnosed in 2015–2020, pelvic inflammatory disease was associated with high-grade serous carcinoma (adjusted odds ratio, 1.43; 95% confidence interval, 1.01–2.04). The odds ratios of the other histotypes were as follows: endometrioid (adjusted odds ratio, 0.13; 95% confidence interval, 0.02–1.06), mucinous (adjusted odds ratio, 1.55; 95% confidence interval, 0.56–4.29), and clear cell carcinoma (adjusted odds ratio, 2.30; 95% confidence interval, 0.90–5.86). A dose-response relationship was observed between the number of pelvic inflammatory disease episodes and the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer (P_trend<.001).

Conclusion: A history of pelvic inflammatory disease is associated with an increased risk of epithelial ovarian cancer and a dose-response relationship is evident. Histotype-specific analyses show an association with increased risk of serous epithelial ovarian cancer and high-grade serous carcinoma and potentially also with clear cell carcinoma, but there is no significant association with other histotypes. Infection and inflammation of the upper reproductive tract might have serious long-term consequences, including epithelial ovarian cancer.

Background: Opportunistic salpingectomy to reduce ovarian cancer incidence has become increasingly common despite the lack of randomised trials investigating its safety. In SALSTER, we tested whether salpingectomy for laparoscopic sterilisation is non-inferior to tubal occlusion regarding complications up to eight weeks postoperatively.

Methods: SALSTER is a register-based randomised non-inferiority trial in which 41 gynaecological departments in Sweden participated. After being reported to The Swedish National Quality Register of Gynaecological Surgery (GynOp) for laparoscopic sterilisation, women aged <50 years received study information and could consent to participation online. If eligible, randomisation was performed by the examining/operating gynaecologist before surgery, with stratification for centre, and allocation 1:1 to salpingectomy or tubal occlusion. Blinding was attempted for patients but was impossible for surgeons. The first primary outcome, any complication up to eight weeks postoperatively, was routinely reported in GynOp through physician assessment of patient questionnaires, medical records and personal contact. Complications up to eight weeks postoperatively, a primary safety outcome, were analysed in the per-protocol population. The non-inferiority margin for the difference in the absolute risk of complications was defined as ten percentage points. Missing data were handled using multiple imputation. SALSTER was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT03860805).

Findings: Between April 4, 2019, and March 31, 2023, 539 women were randomised to salpingectomy and 527 to tubal occlusion. In the salpingectomy and tubal occlusion arms, 40 and 18 women discontinued their participation in the trial and another 26 and 10 did not receive the allocated surgery, respectively. Calculated on imputed data, any complication up to eight weeks postoperatively occurred in 8.1% (38.5/473) of patients after salpingectomy and in 6.2% (31.0/499) of patients after tubal occlusion. The risk difference was 1.9 percentage points (95% confidence interval −1.4 to 5.3).

Interpretation: Laparoscopic salpingectomy is non-inferior to tubal occlusion regarding complication rates up to eight weeks postoperatively. Funding: This research was funded by the Swedish Cancer Society, the Lena Wäppling foundation, the Swedish state under the ALF-agreement, Umeå University, County of Värmland, and Gothenburg Society of Medicine.

Background: Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) may cause substantial individual suffering and a large economic burden for society. This study examined the seroprevalence of Chlamydia trachomatis, Mycoplasma genitalium, herpes simplex virus (HSV) types 1 and 2, and several human papillomaviruses (HPV) in the Swedish population over time.

Methods: The study population consisted of 30-year-old women attending maternity care, and 50 year-old men and women attending health check-ups, from 1975 to 2018. Antibody status was determined by multiplex serology and quantified using median reporter fluorescence intensity (MFI).

Results: A total of 891 samples were analysed (519 from 30-year-old women, 186 from 50 year-old women and 186 from 50 year-old men). Of these, 41.5% showed seropositivity for Chlamydia trachomatis, 16.7% for Mycoplasma genitalium, 70.5% for HSV-1, 14.9% for HSV-2, 13.2% for high-risk HPV, and 8.3% for low-risk HPV. Seropositivity for Mycoplasma genitalium, HSV-1 and especially Chlamydia trachomatis decreased over time.

Conclusions: There was a decrease over time in Chlamydia trachomatis seroprevalence, probably due to contact tracing, testing and early treatment; this might also have affected Mycoplasma genitalium seroprevalence. Despite the reduction, seroprevalences are still high, so continued and new efforts to reduce STI incidence are essential.

Background: Diet may impact important risk factors for endometrial cancer such as obesity and inflammation. However, evidence on the role of specific dietary factors is limited. We investigated associations between dietary fatty acids and endometrial cancer risk in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC).

Methods: This analysis includes 1,886 incident endometrial cancer cases and 297,432 non-cases. All participants were followed up for a mean of 8.8 years. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) of endometrial cancer across quintiles of individual fatty acids estimated from various food sources quantified through food frequency questionnaires in the entire EPIC cohort. The false discovery rate (q-values) was computed to control for multiple comparisons.

Results: Consumption of n-6 γ-linolenic acid was inversely associated with endometrial cancer risk (HR comparing 5th with 1st quintile_Q5−Q1=0.77, 95% CI = 0.64; 0.92, p_trend=0.01, q-value = 0.15). This association was mainly driven by γ-linolenic acid derived from plant sources (HR_{per unit increment}=0.94, 95%CI= (0.90;0.98), p = 0.01) but not from animal sources (HR_{per unit increment}= 1.00, 95%CI = (0.92; 1.07), p = 0.92). In addition, an inverse association was found between consumption of n-3 α-linolenic acid from vegetable sources and endometrial cancer risk (HR_{per unit increment}= 0.93, 95%CI = (0.87; 0.99), p = 0.04). No significant association was found between any other fatty acids (individual or grouped) and endometrial cancer risk.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that higher consumption of γ-linolenic acid and α-linoleic acid from plant sources may be associated with lower risk of endometrial cancer.

Background: The HOPPSA trial is a multi-center national registry-based randomized controlled trial to test the safety and effectiveness of performing opportunistic salpingectomy at hysterectomy to reduce the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC). The study protocol was first published in January 2019 and is available at https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-018-3083-8. Here, we report amendments made to the study protocol since commencement of the trial.

Changes in methods and analysis: The primary outcomes analyses have been changed. (1) Complications will be analyzed using binomial generalized estimating equation (GEE) with log link function, while the unadjusted analyses according to Miettinen and Nurminen will be performed as a sensitivity analysis. (2) Absolute change in Menopause Rating Scale (MRS) will primarily be analyzed using a mixed effects model, adjusted for baseline MRS and center as a random effect. (3) Time to EOC will be analyzed using the mixed effects Cox regression model with center as random effect, while the unadjusted log-rank test will be performed as a sensitivity analysis. The primary outcome Complications will be based solely on the specific assessment in the GynOp quality registry. The Clavien-Dindo classification will be evaluated as a secondary outcome. Furthermore, MRS is also measured three years postoperatively to better pinpoint the onset of menopausal symptoms.

Discussion: The changes to the protocol mainly concern the analyses of data. No changes to recruitment, randomization, intervention, or follow-up of primary outcomes have been made. An interim analysis during 2021 concluded that the study should continue until the target sample size is reached.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03045965. Registered 8 February 2017.