Visceral Obesity Predicts Fewer Lymph Node Metastases and Better Overall Survival in Colon Cancer.
BACKGROUND
The relationship between visceral obesity and colon cancer outcome has not been well studied. The goal of this study was to determine the impact of visceral obesity on lymph node (LN) metastasis and overall survival (OS) in colon cancer.


METHODS
Metastatic LN ratio (MLR) was defined as the number of involved nodes by tumor divided by the total number of resected LNs. Visceral (VFA) and subcutaneous fat areas (SFA) were determined by measuring abdominal fat volume distribution via CT scan, and visceral obesity was defined as a VFA to total fat area ratio (V/T) > 0.29.


RESULTS
In a multivariate analysis among 186 patients, there were inverse associations between V/T and MLR (OR = 0.413, 95% CI = 0.216-0.789, P = 0.007). Furthermore, patients with visceral obesity tended to have significantly better OS than patients with non-visceral obesity.


CONCLUSIONS
Higher V/T ratios which indicate referring to visceral obesity was significantly associated with decreased MLR and better OS for CRC.
Department of Internal Medicine, Institute of Gastroenterology, Hallym University College of Medicine, Hallym University Dongtan Sacred Heart Hospital, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea.
Se Woo
SW
Park
Hang Lak
HL
Lee
Eun Young
EY
Doo
Kang Nyeong
KN
Lee
Dae Won
DW
Jun
Oh Young
OY
Lee
Dong Soo
DS
Han
Byung Chul
BC
Yoon
Ho Soon
HS
Choi
Kang Hong
KH
Lee
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery; D000273:Adipose Tissue / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003082:Colectomy; D003110:Colonic Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality* / Q000601:surgery; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D050152:Intra-Abdominal Fat / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D008197:Lymph Node Excision; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D061330:Multidetector Computed Tomography; D056128:Obesity, Abdominal / Q000150:complications*; D009929:Organ Size; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015996:Survival Rate