Breast cancer is one of the life-threatening malignancies among females in Hong Kong. Obesity is recognised as being correlated with poor prognosis in several cancers, including breast cancer. A recent meta-analysis which included 27 studies had discovered that obesity was modestly, but statistically significantly, associated with worse disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) outcomes in all breast cancer subtypes. Obesity was also statistically significantly associated with worse breast cancer specific survival (BCSS) in the hormone receptor positive/HER2 negative (HR+HER2-) and triple negative (TNBC) populations. Further researches are also needed to explore the potential impacts of other obesity-associated biologic mediators like insulin resistance on the survival outcomes of breast cancer patients.

Keywords: breast cancer, obesity, disease-free survival, overall survival, breast cancer specific survival

Reference

Lohmann AE, et al. J Natl Cancer Inst 2021;djab023.