Bariatric surgery associated with over 50% reduction in cancer risk for individuals with obesity
Bariatric surgery could considerably decrease the risk of cancers related to obesity, such as those of the breast, colon, liver, pancreas, ovaries, and thyroid, in patients with obesity.
“Bariatric surgery, which includes sleeve gastrectomy, gastric bypass, and gastric band procedures, is the principal method for significant weight loss in individuals with obesity,” stated Dr. Vibhu Chittajallu, a gastroenterology fellow at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, during a Digestive Disease Week media briefing. He highlighted that these procedures offer benefits beyond weight loss, such as enhancements in patients’ mental and physical well-being.
Chittajallu further added, “Emerging evidence suggests that the substantial weight reduction linked with bariatric surgery may also provide a protective shield against the development of cancers associated with obesity. My team and I decided to delve deeper into this trend.”
Chittajallu and his team used TriNetX, a database involving 47 U.S. healthcare institutions and over 107 million patients, to conduct a retrospective study from 2002 to 2022. They singled out adults with a Body Mass Index (BMI) over 35 who underwent bariatric surgery, comparing them with patients with obesity who didn’t have the surgery. The study accounted for risk factors like smoking history, alcohol use, heart disease, hormone therapies, and cancer-screening tests, including 55,789 individuals in each group.
The researchers also used the International Agency for Research on Cancer to identify cancers with “sufficient” evidence of a connection to obesity. This included esophageal adenocarcinoma, multiple myeloma, and cancers of the kidney, colon, rectum, stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, ovary, endometrium, breast, and thyroid.
The results revealed that after ten years, the cumulative occurrence of obesity-related cancer was 4% (n = 2,206) in the bariatric surgery group and 8.9% (n = 4,960) in the nonsurgical control group (HR = 0.482; 95% CI, 0.459-0.507).
Chittajallu pointed out that the bariatric surgery group consistently exhibited lower numbers of new cases for all types of obesity-related cancers, including those of the breast, colon, liver, pancreas, ovaries, and thyroid.
“Although more research is required to fully understand the impact of bariatric surgery on cancer risk,” Chittajallu concluded, “our findings indicate that bariatric surgery is a promising area to investigate.”
