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Visceral Obesity May Affect Oncologic Outcome in Patients with Colorectal Cancer

  • Gastrointestinal Oncology
  • Published:
Annals of Surgical Oncology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Obesity is closely related to the development of colorectal cancer as well as other metabolic complications. We investigated the prognostic significance of visceral obesity and body mass index (BMI) in 161 resectable colorectal cancer patients.

Methods

Ratios of visceral fat area (VFA) to subcutaneous fat area (SFA) were measured from the digital images of patients’ computed tomography taken before the surgery, and patients were divided into those with high and those with low VFA/SFA ratio according to the degree of proportional visceral adiposity, and into an overweight and a normal-weight group according to their preoperative BMI.

Results

The overweight group showed a borderline decrease in cumulative disease-free survival compared to the normal-weight group (P = 0.064). Patients with high VFA/SFA ratio (more than 50 percentiles) had significantly lower cumulative disease-free survival rate compared to patients with low VFA/SFA ratio (P = 0.008). BMI and visceral adiposity showed no influence on overall survival of patients.

Conclusion

Increased visceral adiposity was a significant predictor of disease-free survival in patients with resectable colorectal cancer. The prognostic significance of visceral adiposity should further be determined in a larger set of patients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Gyeongsang National University Hospital, 90 Chilam-dong, Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea, 660-702

    Hyeong-Gon Moon MD, Young-Tae Ju MD, Chi-Young Jeong MD, Eun-Jung Jung MD, PhD, Young-Joon Lee MD, PhD, Soon-Chan Hong MD, PhD, Woo-Song Ha MD, PhD, Soon-Tae Park MD, PhD & Sang-Kyung Choi MD, PhD

  2. Department of Surgical Oncology, Gyeongnam Regional Cancer Center, Jinju, Korea

    Hyeong-Gon Moon MD, Young-Tae Ju MD, Chi-Young Jeong MD, Eun-Jung Jung MD, PhD, Young-Joon Lee MD, PhD, Soon-Chan Hong MD, PhD, Woo-Song Ha MD, PhD, Soon-Tae Park MD, PhD & Sang-Kyung Choi MD, PhD

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  1. Hyeong-Gon Moon MD
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  2. Young-Tae Ju MD
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  3. Chi-Young Jeong MD
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  4. Eun-Jung Jung MD, PhD
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  5. Young-Joon Lee MD, PhD
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  6. Soon-Chan Hong MD, PhD
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  7. Woo-Song Ha MD, PhD
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  8. Soon-Tae Park MD, PhD
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  9. Sang-Kyung Choi MD, PhD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sang-Kyung Choi MD, PhD.

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Moon, HG., Ju, YT., Jeong, CY. et al. Visceral Obesity May Affect Oncologic Outcome in Patients with Colorectal Cancer. Ann Surg Oncol 15, 1918–1922 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1245/s10434-008-9891-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1245/s10434-008-9891-4

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