Adiponectin correlates with obesity: A study of 159 childhood acute leukemia survivors from India

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia survivors are predisposed to obesity. However, the exact underlying mechanisms are not known.

The study was done to assess the role of biomarkers of obesity in acute leukemia survivors.

This is a cross-sectional study conducted at All India Institute of Medical Sciences in survivors of acute leukemia who had completed treatment at least 1 year before enrollment in this study.

Obesity was studied by determining the body mass index. Potential biomarkers were studied by assessing serum leptin, resistin, and adiponectin by enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay, and the results were compared in obese versus nonobese survivors.

Descriptive analysis for baseline demographic factors and Student's t-test for comparing the mean levels of biomarkers among the obese and nonobese survivors.

One hundred and fifty-nine acute leukemia patients were enrolled in this study with a median follow-up of 36.8 months. The median age was 10 (range: 3-18) years, and 123 (77.3%) patients were males. The overall prevalence of overweight/obesity was 26.4%, and this was similar in acute myeloid leukemia and acute lymphoblastic leukemia sub-groups (26.2% vs. 27.3%, P = 0.9). Mean serum leptin and resistin were similar in obese and nonobese leukemia survivors (3.7 vs. 2.85 pg/mL, P = 0.064; 8.01 vs. 9.33 ng/mL, P = 0.36). However, mean serum adiponectin was significantly lower in obese leukemia survivors (7.97 vs. 11.5 μg/mL, P = 0.023).

Obese leukemic survivors had lower serum adiponectin levels than nonobese survivors. However, serum resistin and leptin levels were similar in the two groups.