Association of obesity with survival in patients with endometrial cancer

Obesity confers an overall increased risk for development of endometrial cancer. However there are conflicting reports regarding the effect of obesity on patients' overall and disease specific survival. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of obesity on survival in women with endometrial cancer.

After IRB approval, records of women with diagnosis and treatment of endometrial cancer from 1999 to 2016 were abstracted for histopathological, treatment and demographic data. Death was confirmed by query of the Social Security Death Index. Kaplan Meier survival curves and Cox regression modeling was performed with Stata version 14.0.

Of 1732 evaluable patients, there were significant differences in age at diagnosis, histology (endometrioid versus non-endometrioid), stage, race, grade, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes, and treatment between normal weight, overweight, obese, and morbidly obese patients (p < 0.01). There was a linear association of younger age at diagnosis with increasing obesity (p < 0.01) R² = 0.04. Younger age, endometrioid histology, lower stage, and statin use were independently associated with decreased hazard of death (p < 0.01). However, in stratified analysis of non-endometrioid histologies, patients with Stage 3 and 4 disease over the age of 65 showed a survival benefit for women associated with obesity (p = 0.02).

Obesity is associated with younger age at diagnosis and earlier stage disease. Obesity is associated with improved disease specific survival for stage 3 and 4 non-endometrioid endometrial cancers.