INTRODUCTION

It is my pleasure to be the guest editor of this special edition of Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases (SOARD) dedicated to metabolic bariatric surgery and cancer prevention. It was an honor to serve the ASMBS membership from 2021-2022 as the 35^th president. As president, I had the distinct pleasure of picking the theme for the annual meeting. I chose the link between metabolic bariatric surgery and cancer prevention in attempt to highlight an area lesser known by patients, payors, and surgeons alike. We have made great strides in getting our message out about the powerful metabolic impact that our surgeries provide on type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and other obesity related comorbid conditions. However, we still have significant opportunities and research to be done to understand the link between obesity and cancer. Longitudinal studies have shown that patients who undergo metabolic bariatric surgery live longer compared to a cohort that does not undergo surgery. However, the reasons that patients live longer are not only less cardiac events, but less cancers as well. To date, overweight and obesity is the number one risk factor for 13 cancers. Much of the data behind that is summarized in this special edition. I want to thank all the authors for their contributions, which are summaries of a call-to-action panel we held at the annual meeting. A special thank you also to Ed Sauter, MD, PhD who served as our Mason lecturer. Many thanks also to Dr. Raul Rosenthal, senior editor of SOARD, whose idea it was for this special edition. It was an honor to serve as guest editor for this special edition of SOARD, and I hope you gain as much information from this special edition as I did.