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Objectives. The IL6 −174 promoter polymorphism impacts serum cytokine levels through transcriptional regulation. The objective of our study was to determine if −174 IL6 genotype influences survival in ovarian cancer. Methods. The IL6 −174 polymorphism was assessed by direct DNA sequencing in lymphocyte DNA from 160 women with invasive ovarian, or peritoneal cancers. IL6 levels were measured in ascites and plasma in a subset of cases using colorimetric sandwich ELISA procedure. Overall survival was calculated according to the method of Kaplan and Meier. Cox regression analysis was used to evaluate the significance of individual variables in multivariate analysis. Chi-square or Fishers Exact was used to assess the significance of contingency tables. Results. The IL6 −174 genotype frequencies of CC (19%), CG (50%), and GG (31%) were in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium and were similar to published frequencies in Caucasian controls. There were no associations with IL6 −174 genotype and age, stage or optimal cytoreduction. Stage had a significant impact on survival ( p =0.003). The IL6 −174 GG genotype was significantly associated with longer overall survival (median 131 months) compared to CC or CG (median 28 months, p =0.0007). In cox regression analysis using the covariates genotype ( p =0.006) and stage ( p =0.02), both were independently significant. Furthermore, there was no association found between IL6 levels in ascites or plasma, and genotype, stage, or overall survival. Conclusions. The IL6 −174 GG genotype has a strong, independent, and favorable impact on survival for women with ovarian, and peritoneal carcinoma.

We performed a population-based analysis to determine the effect of histology on survival for women with invasive cervical cancer.The Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database was used to identify women with stage IB-IVB cervical cancer treated from 1988 to 2005. Patients were stratified by histology (squamous, adenocarcinoma, and adenosquamous). Clinical characteristics, patterns of care, and outcomes were analyzed using multivariable logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards models.A total of 24,562 patients were identified including 18,979 (77%) women with squamous cell carcinomas, 4103 (17%) with adencarcinomas, and 1480 (6%) with adenosquamous tumors. Women with adenocarcinomas were younger, more often white, and more frequently married than patients with squamous cell tumors (p0.0001 for all). Patients with adenocarcinomas were more likely to present with early-stage disease (p0.0001). At diagnosis, 26.7% of women with adenocarcinomas had stage IB1 tumors compared to 16.9% of those with squamous cell carcinomas. Among women with early-stage (IB1-IIA) tumors, patients with adenocarcinomas were 39% (HR=1.39; 95% CI, 1.23-1.56) more likely to die from their tumors than those with squamous cell carcinomas. For patients with advanced-stage disease (stage IIB-IVA) women with adenocarcinomas were 21% (HR=1.21; 95% CI, 1.10-1.32) more likely to die from their tumors than those with squamous neoplasms. Five-year survival for stage IIIB neoplasms five-year survival was 31.3% (95% CI, 29.2-33.3%) for squamous tumors vs. 20.3% (95% CI, 14.2-27.1%) for adenocarcinomas.Cervical adenocarcinomas are more common in younger women and white patients. Adenocarcinoma histology negatively impacts survival for both early and advanced-stage carcinomas.