Abstract
Background
To assess the effect of bariatric surgery on the cancer risk of patients with morbid
obesity because evidence is mounting of an association between obesity and cancer.
Methods
We performed an observational 2-cohort study. The treatment cohort (n = 1035) included
patients who had undergone bariatric surgery from 1986 to 2002. The control group
(n = 5746) included age- and gender-matched morbidly obese patients who had not undergone
weight-reduction surgery and who were identified from a single-payor administrative
database. The subjects with physician or hospital visits for a cancer-related diagnosis
or treatment within the 6 months previous to the beginning of the study were excluded.
The cohorts were followed up for a maximum of 5 years from study inception.
Results
Bariatric surgery resulted in a significant reduction in the mean percentage of excess
weight loss (67.1%, P <.001). The surgery patients had significantly fewer physician/hospital visits for
all cancer diagnoses (n = 21, 2.0%) compared with the controls (n = 487, 8.45%; relative
risk .22, 95% confidence interval .143–.347; P = .001). The physician/hospital visits for common cancers such as breast cancer were
significantly reduced in the surgery group (P = .001). For all other cancers, the physician/hospital visits showed a trend toward
being lower in the surgery group. Because of the low frequencies, statistical significance
could not be demonstrated for individual cancer diagnoses.
Conclusion
The data suggest that bariatric surgery improves the cancer outcomes in some morbidly
obese patients.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: September 22, 2008
Accepted:
August 14,
2008
Received in revised form:
August 13,
2008
Received:
April 19,
2008
Footnotes
This study was supported by an unrestricted educational grant from Ethicon Endosurgery.
Identification
Copyright
© 2008 American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
