ORLANDO, FL USA (UroToday.com) - The relationship between obesity and high-risk clear cell type RCC is not clear. Karim Chamie and colleagues studied the association of obesity with lymphatic spread and survival in patients from an international phase III clinical trial which tested the efficacy of cG250 antibodies in patients with high risk for recurrence of high-risk clear cell RCC.
The authors reviewed clinical and pathologic records of 864 patients from the phase III clinical trial. They assessed patient BMI in addition to other demographic status. BMI was stratified into widely accepted BMI groups. They then calculated for the association between BMI, severity of disease, and survival in patients with clear cell RCC.
They found that majority of patients were overweight and obese. Interestingly, they found that increasing BMI led to a decrease incidence of lymphatic spread in their cohort of patients. Furthermore, obesity was associated with improved disease-free and overall survival.
The authors concluded that in their cohort of patients, for those who had had nephrectomies for RCC, obesity was beneficial. This is a very interesting finding as previous belief has been that obesity is associated with higher risk of having kidney cancer. The results of the study may indicate that BMI is not a good indicator of kidney cancer. Taking into account the weight loss of patients is necessary to confirm the conclusions from the study, patients in the obese category may not have lost as much weight, a factor that is usually associated with worsening disease.
Presented by Karim Chamie, MD at the American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting - May 16 - 21, 2014 - Orlando, Florida USA
Los Angeles, CA USA
Written by Garen Abedi, MD, University of California (Irvine), and medical writer for UroToday.com
