Obesity Linked to Worse Outcomes in Most Common Breast Ca Subtype

[AlaskaAngel]

Obesity Linked to Worse Outcomes in Most Common Breast Ca Subtype

Elsevier Global Medical News. 2010 Dec 10, B Jancin

SAN ANTONIO (EGMN) – Baseline obesity in breast cancer patients possessing the estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative disease subtype was independently associated with a 23% higher risk of recurrence and nearly a 50% increase in all-cause mortality compared with rates in the nonobese in a first-of-its-kind study.

[Jackie07]

Happened to come across today this article that offers some solutions:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007297.htm

[Becky]

Dear Angel

I read this with gusto. Although not obese, I fight hard to barely be in the normal range (as you and I have discussed may times).

My mother is obese (5'2" and 180 lbs) and she was diagnosed with bc just 3-4 months after me. At the end of this month, she will be 6 years out. She is getting more tests and has an appointment with our surgeon January 6 due to clustered calcifications in and around the scar tissue of her lumpectomy. Although her 5 years of Arimidex is "up" her onc kept her on anyway. I have always been fearful of a recurrence for her due to her unhealthy lifestyle which includes what she eats and drinks as well as no exercise whatsoever. Of course, right now we are not sure of what is really happening but I am not optimistic and will let you know the outcome but I feel my struggle has been worth the effort so far in that I have had no recurrence as of yet. We all have to fight the fat.

[AlaskaAngel]

My older sister has the same weight and exercise issues as your mom, Becky. My sister had early stage IDC 10 years ago with just rads + 2 weeks of tamoxifen, and it has never recurred. (No way to know whether at that time it was HER2 pos or not.)

But she now has IBC and falls neatly into this ER+, HER2 neg group. She lost 60 pounds during A/C and T this time, and got no benefit per her onc from A/C. It was during the Taxol that Femara was started and she improved. Thus, they are unable to discern whether the Taxol also was useless or not, and whether it is the continuing Femara alone that has made the difference, (plus the weight loss).

She is not on chemo now, just on Femara, and I worry that as she feels better and better she will start to gain some of the weight back, instead of continuing to lose. (Her BMI is still way above normal.)

The question also comes up as to whether these numbers would be even more conclusive about weight loss if there was a way to separate out whether balancing the types of fat eaten (omega's) is also meaningful.

If proportionately more HER2 positives are HR negative than positive and they lumped all the HER2's together in this study, then maybe weight management makes more of a difference for the HER2 pos/HR positives than the study would otherwise indicate?

A.A.

[TanyaRD]

This reiterates what the WINS trial found. The women with Triple Negative disease had greater benefit from dietary fat reduction (? or resulting weight reduction). Overall, it is critical for women of all categories to monitor and target a healthy weight as the risk for a different breast cancer remains.