Recent research indicates that obesity makes ovarian cancer deadlier and more likely to recur. According to physician and senior author of the study, Dr. Andrew J. Li of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, maintaining ideal body weight is important for many reasons. This is just one more reason to reduce obesity — because obese women suffering from advanced ovarian cancer are more likely to die than women at healthy weights. They also suffer recurrences more quickly. On average, women in the study considered overweight or obese saw an average of 16 months before recurrence while those considered underweight or at a healthy weight saw 25 months.

Perhaps it’s the secretion of adipose tissue that makes tumors less sensitive to chemotherapy. Li said there are ideas on the table — and his team are looking into them. One fact they feel certain about is that obesity does not increase the chances of contracting ovarian cancer. It just shows the odds of survival are diminished once the disease has been contracted.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Findings from a new study confirm that obesity is associated with decreased survival among women with ovarian cancer.

“A large study reported last year showed that obesity adversely affects the survival of a number of cancers, including ovarian,” senior author Dr. Andrew J. Li, from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, told Reuters Health.

Li explained that his team wanted to see if this was due to the presence of other concurrent illnesses and conditions, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, or if obesity was having a direct effect on the cancer.

The current study, in the medical journal Cancer, involved 216 patients who underwent surgery for ovarian cancer at the researchers’ institution. Twenty-five percent of patients were considered overweight, having a body mass index of at least 25 but less than 30, while 16 percent were obese, having a BMI of at least 30.

As expected, diabetes and hypertension were more common among obese patients. However, even after accounting for these factors, obese women with advanced ovarian cancer still had worse survival than their counterparts with lower BMIs.

“Based on our findings, we think there is something secreted by fat tissue that affects tumor biology,” Li said. ”

Li said his team is now involved in studies to shed light “on the molecular mechanisms that underlie the association between obesity and ovarian cancer survival.”

Source: Reuters