Different body mass indexes and their relation to prognosis of early-stage breast cancer in postmenopausal Mexican-Mestizo women

ABSTRACT

It has been suggested that obesity increases the incidence of metastatic breast tumors, resulting in higher rates of recurrence, and increased mortality; for that reason, the aim of this study was to investigate if different body mass indexes modified the clinicopathologic characteristics of breast cancer; as well as, the recurrence-free survival in postmenopausal Mexican-Mestizo women. Two hundred twenty postmenopausal women with operable breast cancer were included. A structured questionnaire was applied to explore the existence of potential risk factors. Body mass index (BMI) was determined in each case and patients were grouped in accordance to their BMI in: normal weight, overweight, or obesity. Kaplan–Meier survival analysis and log-rank statistic were used to estimate recurrence-free-survival differences. Hormonal receptor(+)/HER2(-) was the most frequent breast cancer in all groups. Overweight women presented a statistically significant increased risk of this molecular subtype, with an odds ratio (OR) = 5.57; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.54–24.86; P = .004)). In addition, the triple-negative subtype was more frequent in women with a normal BMI in comparison to women with overweight (P = .016) or women with obesity. The heterogeneity in cancer subtypes regarding BMI was observed.

KEYWORDS:

• Body mass index
• breast cancer
• postmenopausal Mexican-Mestizo women
• prognosis

Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Carlos Domínguez Reyes and Dr. Felipe Villegas Carlos, from de Instituto de Enfermedades de la Mama, FUCAM for their support in the clinical phase of the study.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

“All procedures performed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committees and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.”

Informed consent

“Informed consent was obtained from all individuals included in this study.”

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Programa de Apoyo a Proyectos de Investigación e Innovación Tecnológica PAPIIT, Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico, DGAPA, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (Grant IA204617). Eduardo Cárdenas Cárdenas was supported by a Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT), México, fellowship award. This work was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD degree of Eduardo Cárdenas Cárdenas at the Programa de Doctorado en Ciencias Médicas, Unidad de Investigación en Obesidad, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.