It is commonly known that being obese is a disadvantage when it comes to treating most forms of cancer.
Paradoxically, it has long been thought to be the opposite when it comes to treating lung cancer, with many studies showing that patients with a high body mass index, or BMI, experience a lower risk of having their lung cancer recur, as well as longer survival rates post surgery.
That irregularity, called the “obesity paradox,” has been turned on its head following new research conducted at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
A study identified “confounding factors” that help explain why previous studies reached the inaccurate conclusion that being overweight or obese is potentially beneficial for lung cancer patients.
“Obesity is second only to smoking as a cause of cancer, so it matters how you measure it,” said Dr. Sai Yendamuri, chair of thoracic surgery at the Buffalo cancer hospital.
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Yendamuri and a team of researchers discussed their findings during a symposium this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in San Diego.
He and his team determined that as a means to define obesity, BMI – which uses a mathematical equation involving height and weight – is deeply flawed because it provides only a rough estimate of the percentage of fat in the body. It also fails to pinpoint where the fat is located or what types of fat are present.
Using images from computerized tomography (CT) scans in a case-control study, the researchers discovered that patients with early-stage lung cancer had more fat – but not a higher BMI – than those without lung cancer who were at high risk for the disease. In…
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