Research Links Obesity to More Aggressive Ovarian Cancer
Obesity in women is more likely to affect how she’ll survive ovarian cancer if she’s diagnosed with one.
That’s what the new study from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center found and reported in the August 28 online edition of American Cancer Society’s journal, Cancer: that obesity affected survival rates, shortened the length of time to recurrence of the disease, and led to earlier death from the cancer as compared to women diagnosed at their ideal body weight.
According to Andrew Li, M.D., the study’s principal investigator at Cedars-Sinai’s Women’s Cancer Research Institute at the Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute:
“This study is the first to identify weight as an independent factor in ovarian cancer in disease progression and overall survival, suggesting that there is an element in the fat tissue itself that influences the outcome of this disease in obese women.
One of the most lethal cancers, ovarian cancer affects almost one in 60 women. While most is diagnosed in the advanced stage, 70% will die within five years.
Though there are several types of ovarian cancer, the most common type are tumors originating from the surface cells of the ovary (epithelial cells).
In previous studies, obesity has been shown to be a factor in the development and prognosis of various cancers such as breast, uterine and colorectal, but the mechanism of its (obesity) relationship to ovarian cancers has never been well understood.
“While further molecular studies are warranted, our study suggests that fat tissue excretes a hormone or protein that causes ovarian cancer cells to grow more aggressively,” said Li, who is also a physician in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
“The next steps will be to examine this relationship more closely, and to determine the exact biological mechanisms that influence tumor growth in ovarian cancer.”
Obesity (defined as a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30 or above) has grown into a health concern for more than 30% of adults aged 20 and older in the United States alone are affected.
Read the full report at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center ( a pdf file).
Tags: obesity, ovarian-cancerRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Gynecological cancers
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