Bariatric surgery could more than halve the risk of cancer in obese people

Bariatric surgery can significantly reduce the risk of obesity-related cancersincluding breast, colon, liver, pancreas, ovaries and thyroid, in obese patients.

“The main modality for significant weight loss in obesity is bariatric surgery, including sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass and gastric banding procedures,” vibhu Chittajalludoctor, A fellow in gastroenterology at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, said during the Digestive Disease Week press conference. “Benefits of these procedures other than weight loss include improved mental and physical well-being for patients.”

He added: “There is growing evidence that the significant weight loss associated with bariatric surgery may be protective against the formation of cancer associated with obesity Also. My team and I set out to study this trend in greater depth.

Using TriNetX, a multi-institutional database of 47 US healthcare organizations and more than 107 million patients, Chittajallu and colleagues conducted a retrospective study from 2002 to 2022. They identified adults with a BMI over 35 who had bariatric surgery and compared them with patients. who were obese but had not had surgery, including 55,789 people in each group after controlling for risk factors such as smoking history, alcohol consumption, heart disease, hormone therapies and screening tests cancer.

The researchers also used the International Agency for Research on Cancer to determine cancers with “sufficient” evidence related to obesity, including adenocarcinoma of the esophagus, multiple myeloma, and cancers of the kidney, colon, rectum, stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, ovary and endometrium. , breast and thyroid.

According to the results, the cumulative incidence of obesity-related cancers at 10 years was 4% (n = 2,206) in the bariatric surgery group and 8.9% (n = 4,960) in the non-control group. surgery (HR = 0.482; 95% CI, 0.459-0.507).

Chittajallu also noted that the bariatric surgery group had a “consistently lower” number of new cases for all types of obesity-related cancers, including breast (501 vs. 751), colon (201 vs. 360), liver (969 vs 2,198), pancreatic (54 vs 86), ovarian (130 vs 214) and thyroid (154 vs 175).

“Further research needs to be conducted to better understand how bariatric surgery affects cancer risk,” Chittajallu said, “but our results suggest that bariatric surgery is an exciting avenue to explore.”

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