Endometrial cancer is the sixth most common cancer in
women worldwide with an incidence rate of 8.2 per 100,000
per year and a mortality rate of 2.0 per 100,000 in 2008.1
Early menarche, late menopause, nulliparity, use of estrogenonly
hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and obesity have
all been consistently identified as risk factors for endometrial
cancer. This suggests that greater lifetime exposure to estrogens,
unopposed by progesterone, is important in the etiology
of this cancer.2,3 More recently it has been proposed that
chronic inflammation may work with or in addition to estrogen
exposure in the development of endometrial cancer.4