A pooled analysis of clinical trial data points to a link between obesity and an increased risk for any-grade immune-related adverse events among people receiving nivolumab monotherapy for advanced cancer.

“These findings are consistent with the obesity paradox that was previously seen during the VEGF-targeted therapy era,” they write in JAMA Oncology .

Individuals with obesity tend to have worse cancer survival outcomes than those without obesity, unless they have lung cancer, renal cell carcinoma, or melanoma, show findings of a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Since these findings confirmed “the presence of the obesity paradox” among their cohorts, the researchers then investigated transcriptomic differences between primary tumors from patients in the obese and normal BMI groups.

A diagnosis of CHF based on modified Framingham criteria was a significant 2.86 times more common among the patients with cancer than the controls after taking into consideration a raft of confounding factors including smoking history and prior diagnoses of diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, hyperlipidemia, and obesity.

The guideline also provides recommendations for the management of VTE in special populations, such as people with renal impairment, obesity or thrombocytopenia.

And they continue: “Last, it is established that androgen-ablative therapies increase cardiometabolic risk by promoting visceral obesity, dyslipidemia, and dysglycemia.

A chart review of patients with metastatic urothelial cancer has identified a significant association between BMI and immune checkpoint inhibitor response and survival. This independent news story was supported by an educational grant from Pfizer and Merck Healthcare KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

As familiarity with the robotic platform increases, studies have shown an expansion in indications, also including patients with vascular involvement and even indicating favorable results in patients with obesity and high-risk morphometric features.

The associations “may be biologically driven and/or due to differences in detection,” as men with obesity can often have a delayed diagnosis due to their lower prostate-specific antigen levels, among other reasons, say the researchers in BMC Medicine .

The team continues: “Given the considerable differences in overweight and obesity rates between the Mexican and Chinese populations, it is plausible that the differences in both study results were partially caused by a discrepancy in population BMI.” medwireNews is an independent medical news service provided by Springer Healthcare Ltd. © 2022 Springer Healthcare Ltd, part of the Springer Nature Group JAMA Oncol 2022; doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2021.7015

The women were at high risk for postoperative upper limb morbidity due to planned axillary node clearance or radiotherapy to the axilla or supraclavicular fossa, obesity, existing shoulder problems, subsequent axillary surgery after sentinel lymph node biopsy, or planned axillary or supraclavicular radiotherapy within 6 weeks of primary surgery.

The researchers report in JAMA Oncology that individuals with recent cancer treatment had a significant 1.74-fold higher odds of death within 30 days of COVID-19 diagnosis than people without cancer after adjustment for potential confounders including age, sex, race and ethnicity, and severe obesity among others.

“Thus, post-[neoadjuvant chemotherapy] surgical decisions should be made in the context of other patient and treatment characteristics that predispose women to perioperative complications and suboptimal outcomes (eg, obesity, history of or potential for future radiotherapy, and smoking),” they add.

After adjusting for age, sex, ethnicity, comorbidities and other potential confounders, the study authors showed that age was the only variable significantly associated with an increased risk for both death (hazard ratio [HR]=2.05) and the composite outcome (HR=1.19), while obesity, which occurred in 25% of the patient population, was significantly associated with an increased risk only for the composite outcome (HR=1.85) Shah and co-investigators note that unlike earlier studies with high rates of multiple comorbidity, three-quarters of the patients included in the current study either had one or no comorbidities, which “may explain why other medical conditions were not independently associated with a worse composite outcome or death.”

Women with early-stage breast cancer have a differential response to adjuvant docetaxel therapy according to their BMI, finds a post-hoc analysis of a phase 3 trial.