Pediatric patients with cancer who have obesity at the time of diagnosis may face an elevated risk of mortality, according to a recent study published by Sassine et al in Cancer.
Study Methods and Results
In the retrospective study, investigators examined data from the Cancer in Young People in Canada database, which included all pediatric patients aged 2 to 18 years with newly diagnosed cancer across Canada from 2001 to 2020. Obesity was defined as age- and sex-adjusted body mass index at or above the 95th percentile.
Among 11,291 pediatric patients with cancer, 10.5% were found to have obesity at the time of diagnosis. The investigators assessed 5-year event-free survival as well as overall survival.
Compared with the patients without obesity at the time of their initial cancer diagnosis, those with obesity had lower rates of 5-year event-free survival (77.5% vs 79.6%) and overall survival (83.0% vs 85.9%).
After investigators adjusted for factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, neighborhood income quintile, treatment era, and cancer categories, obesity at diagnosis was linked with a 16% increase in the risk of relapse and a 29% increase in the risk of mortality. The negative impact of obesity on prognosis was especially pronounced in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and brain tumors.
Conclusions
“Our study highlights the negative impact of obesity among all types of childhood cancers. It provides the rationale to evaluate different strategies to mitigate the adverse risk of obesity on cancer outcomes in future trials,” underscored co–senior study author Thai Hoa Tran, MD, of the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine in Montreal. “It also reinforces the urgent need to reduce the epidemic of childhood obesity, as it can result in significant health consequences,” he concluded.
Disclosure: For full disclosures of the study authors, visit acsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com.
