Brit J Cancer: Body mass index and absolute lymphocyte count can predict disease-free survival of breast cancer patients

Recently, the British Journal of Cancer, an authoritative journal in the field of oncology, published a research article in which researchers aimed to assess the association between body mass index (BMI) and absolute lymphocyte count (ALC) in breast cancer patients and healthy women.

In addition, the researchers aim to clarify the prognostic value of these factors in breast cancer.

Researchers retrospectively identified 1225 patients with primary invasive breast cancer and 35,991 healthy women, and used a multivariate Cox proportional hazard model to evaluate factors such as BMI and complete blood count related to disease-free survival (DFS).

Through analysis, the researchers found that there was a positive correlation between BMI and ALC in breast cancer patients and healthy women (P<0.
001).
In a multivariate analysis, compared with underweight or normal weight individuals, participants with overweight or obesity had worse DFS (hazard ratio [HR] 1.
98; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.
34-2.
92; P=0.
001), but patients with higher ALC had better DFS than patients with lower ALC (HR 0.
43; 95% CI 0.
29-0.
65; P<0.
001).
After risk stratification based on BMI/ALC, high-risk patients with higher BMI/lower ALC had worse DFS than other patients (HR 2.
48; 95% CI 1.
70–3.
62; P<0.
001).

It can be seen that there is a positive correlation between BMI and ALC, but they have opposite effects on the prognosis of breast cancer.
Patients with higher BMI/lower ALC have worse DFS than other patients .
Future research should explore the potential mechanism of BMI/ALC affecting the prognosis of breast cancer.
Original source:

Sung Min Ko.