About AACES

What is AACES?

AACES (African-American Cancer Epidemiology Study) is a collaborative study between research institutions across the United States which seeks to better understand the diagnosis of ovarian cancer and related cancers in African-American women.

Why AACES?

We are studying the causes and outcomes of ovarian cancer in African-American women because little is known about this disease in this group of women. AACES is the first study to focus on ovarian cancer in African-Americans.

Who will be in AACES?

1,000 African-American women with a recent diagnosis of ovarian cancer and related cancers.

Eligible women will be contacted by the study team directly through a letter in the mail.

Women in AACES will be from 12 states: Alabama, California, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

What has AACES accomplished so far?

Participation in AACES has been invaluable in finding potential causes of ovarian cancer. Participants have helped us learn a lot about what causes ovarian cancer and ways to prevent it.

With the help of participants, we have published over 30 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

Some results from these papers include the following:

Among African-American women,

• Body powder use was significantly associated with epithelial ovarian cancer risk (Schildkraut et al., 2016)
• A more pro-inflammatory diet was associated with an increased epithelial ovarian cancer risk (Peres et al., 2017)
• A self-reported history of endometriosis was associated with increased risk of ovarian cancer (Park et al., 2018)

AACES is also part of the Ovarian Cancer in Women of African Ancestry (OCWAA) consortium, which is a group of eight studies. OCWAA provides novel insight into disparities in ovarian cancer.

Since AACES has helped us learn a lot more about disparities in ovarian cancer risk, we are expanding our study to look at ovarian cancer survival.

What is the future of AACES?

When we first started AACES, our goal was to better understand the causes of ovarian cancer in African-American women. Through funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) AACES is now trying to better understand the complex causes of survival outcomes in African-American women with ovarian cancer.

We are contacting previous study participants as well as about 350 new participants. New participants will be asked to complete a telephone interview and a diet survey, and give a small blood or saliva sample. For previous particpants, we will be asking about your health and health-related factors that may have changed since we were last in touch.