Korean Epithelial Ovarian Cancer Study (Ko-EVE): Protocols and Interim Report

Background: There have been few studies of Asian ovarian cancer and benign tumors. The primary aimof this paper was to report the protocol of the Ko-EVE study to examine epidemiological and molecularfactors for ovarian cancer and benign neoplasms and to ascertain the major risk factors for ovarian cancercontrol in Korea.
Methods: This case-control study covers incident epithelial ovarian cancers and benignneoplasms, four major centers participating in enrolling incident cases and 3 hospitals enrolling healthycontrols among health examinees. Standardized questionnaires were administered by trained interviewers,including sections on socio-demographics characteristics, past medical history, medication usage, familyhistory, lifetime consumption of alcohol and tobacco, diet, physical activity, and reproductive factors forwomen. Various biological specimens were collected in the biorepository according to the standardizedprotocol. Annual follow-up for cancer cases and follow-up at the 1st year for benign tumor cases areperforming to evaluate treatment effect and progression. Passive follow to see long-term survival will beconducting using record linkage with national data.
Results: The total number recruited in 2010-2011was 246 epithelial ovarian cancer cases, 362 benign epithelial tumors and 345 controls. We are planning tocollect subjects for at least 1,500 sets of ovarian cancer, 2,000 benign tumors and 1,500 controls till 2018.
Conclusion: The Ko-EVE will provide unique and important data to probe the etiology and natural historyof Korean epithelial ovarian cancer. It will be continued by genomic and proteomic epidemiological analysesand future intervention studies for the prevention of ovarian cancer among Koreans.