Marital status and the incidence of sarcomas of the uterus

To explore further the descriptive epidemiology of sarcomas of the uterus, we examined the distribution of marital status among 1479 white women diagnosed as having one of these tumors between January 1, 1973, and December 31, 1986, in 7 geographically defined areas of the United States. We estimated incidence rates based on the distribution of marital status of the female population of these seven areas as of 1980; adjustment for the prevalence of intact uteri in the estimated population-at-risk was performed using data from a survey of a representative sample of the United States population in 1982-1984. The incidence of uterine sarcoma was higher among never-married compared to ever-married women (rate ratio, 1.5; 95% confidence intervals, 1.3, 1.8). The association with marital status was similar for each of the three major histological categories (leiomyosarcomas, malignant mixed müllerian tumors, and endometrial stromal sarcomas). These results provide evidence that one or more characteristics associated with a woman's marital status may play a role in the etiology of one or more histological types of uterine sarcoma.