title: Influence of body weight changes on survival in patients undergoing chemotherapy for epithelial ovarian cancer.
abstract: Epithelial ovarian cancer is a highly fatal gynecologic malignancy with a poor prognosis. Therefore, identification of new modifiable prognostic factors is important. Due to the fact that the effect of body weight changes during chemotherapy for EOC is still not very well known we aimed to describe, considering evidence, role of body weight changes in relation to survival.
  
  
  
  Between October 2014 and August 2015 we systematically searched the following databases: Medline, Scopus, Web of Science and EMBASE to identify the studies describing the influence of body weight changes on survival in patients undergoing chemotherapy for EOC.
  
  
  
  We identified 601 potentially relevant publications, however finally only one article was included for data extraction and analysis. The overall survival in the selected paper was significantly associated with body weight changes during the first-line chemotherapy. Nevertheless, no influence on progression free survival was found.
  
  
  
  The analyzed data provides initial evidence, showing poorer overall survival  associated with body weight loss and improved overall survival associated with body weight gain during primary chemotherapy for epithelial ovarian cancer. Prospective and retrospective trials are an urgent calling to confirm this conclusion.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Nutrition and Hygiene, Poznan University of Life Science, Poznan, Poland. marcin.mardas@skpp.edu.pl.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mardas
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stelmach-Mardas
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zalewski
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Grabowski
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Czapka-Matyasik
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Steffen
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Boeing
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Mądry
mesh_terms: D001835:Body Weight; D000077216:Carcinoma, Ovarian Epithelial; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009375:Neoplasms, Glandular and Epithelial / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology; D010051:Ovarian Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000401:mortality / Q000503:physiopathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016019:Survival Analysis