Obesity Reduces Ovarian Cancer Survival
- From: "Roman Bystrianyk" <rbystrianyk@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 29 Aug 2006 17:25:27 -0700
"Obesity Reduces Ovarian Cancer Survival", Forbes, August 28, 2006,
Link:
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/health/feeds/hscout/2006/08/28/hscout534591.html
Obese women with ovarian cancer typically fare worse than those who are
not obese, a new study shows.
"If women develop ovarian cancer and they are obese, they have a lower
chance of survival than those who are overweight or normal weight,"
noted senior researcher Dr. Andrew Li, a gynecologic oncologist at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, in Los Angeles.
Obese women with advanced disease may also have a shorter time period
to cancer recurrence, according to the study, which will be published
in the Oct. 1 issue of Cancer.
Obesity is known to be a risk factor for several malignancies,
including endometrial cancer and cancers of the kidney, breast and
colon. Previous studies have also found that obesity bodes poorly for
survival from ovarian cancer, said Li, who is also assistant
professor-in-residence at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
Li said this study is the first to identify weight as an independent
factor in the progression of ovarian cancer and survival. The study
also provides a clue as to how obesity boosts the risk of death from
ovarian cancer.
"I think fat cells secrete some kind of hormonal factor that actually
makes cancer cells behave more aggressively and be less resistant to
cell death by traditional chemotherapy drugs," he explained.
In the study, Li's team reviewed medical data from 216 women with
ovarian cancer to evaluate relationships between obesity, ovarian
cancer, the biology of the tumors and health outcomes. The women all
had epithelial ovarian cancer, the most common kind, in which tumors
originate from the surface cells of the ovary, called epithelial cells.
The women had surgery for their cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
between 1996 and 2003.
Eight percent of the patients were underweight, 50 percent were of
ideal weight and 26 percent were overweight. Sixteen percent were
obese, defined as a body mass index or BMI of 30 or higher.
Li and his team found that women with BMIs more than 25 (the beginning
of the "overweight" range) had shorter disease-free survival times than
did women with lower BMIs. And, as BMI increased, so did the chances of
death from the cancer.
When the researchers evaluated all 216 patents, they did not find that
overall survival differed much between the obese and the ideal body
weight women. But, when they selected only those with stage III or IV
(advanced) disease, a trend emerged. In these women, increased BMI
became associated with both shorter time to cancer recurrence and
shortened survival, the researchers said.
Li cautioned that, "These findings should certainly be validated in
other trials." However, the study suggests that ovarian cancer survival
can now be added to the list of reasons to maintain a healthy body
weight, he said.
"This is an interesting paper," said Dr. Yoshiki Iwamoto, an assistant
professor of surgical research at the City of Hope National Medical
Center in Duarte, Calif. The results, he added, are consistent with
what has been reported by others. "Not only ovarian cancer but [other
cancers] have been shown to be associated with obesity," he said.
With more than 30 percent of U.S. adults obese, Iwamoto said, it's
crucial for them to try to lower their weight.
Each year, about 20,000 U.S. women learn they have ovarian cancer,
according to statistics from the American Cancer Society, and about
15,000 women die of the disease annually.
.
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