Study: Lower visceral fat area associated with higher cancer mortality risk

Key takeaways:

• Visceral fat area represents body fat mass and potential correlations with immune, inflammatory and nutritional status.
• It is also an independent prognostic indicator of muscle mass in patients with cancer.

Lower visceral fat area was linked to a higher mortality risk for patients with several cancer types, especially colorectal and gastric, according to the results of research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Adipose tissue has been investigated for its impact on cancer prognosis, Lingyu Li, of the First Hospital of Jilin University’s Cancer Center in Changchun, China, and colleagues wrote.

“However, diverse indicators have been used to represent adipose tissue, and the relationship between body adipose mass and the prognosis of patients with cancer remains controversial,” they added.

So, the researchers conducted a population-based multicenter prospective cohort study of 14,018 patients with cancer to investigate indicators of optimal body composition representing body fat mass to predict risk for cancer-related mortality.

Li and colleagues found that visceral fat area (VFA) was a better indicator for body fat content than BMI and an independent prognostic indicator of muscle mass in patients with cancer.

“Our findings revealed that VFA not only represents the body fat mass of the patients but also exhibits potential correlations with nutritional, immune and inflammatory status,” they wrote. “VFA serves as a robust prognostic indicator for patients with cancer and provides valuable prognostic information between heterogeneous populations, including patients with different levels of muscle mass, subcutaneous fat, and nutritional status.”

Among the 2,788 patients treated systemically, a lower VFA was associated with a higher risk of mortality in patients with various cancer types (HR = 1.33; 95% CI, 1.08-1.64), particularly:

• colorectal cancer (HR = 1.81; 95% CI: 1.06-3.08);
• gastric cancer (HR = 2.13; 95% CI: 1.3-3.49);
• and non-small cell lung cancer (HR = 1.27; 95% CI, 1.01-1.59).

“Our study demonstrated that VFA is a reliable indicator of body fat mass and associated with nutritional, immune, and inflammatory status,” Li and colleagues wrote. “Furthermore, we identified a strong correlation between lower VFA and a poorer prognosis, regardless of muscle mass and subcutaneous fat content, particularly among Chinese patients with digestive cancer or malnutrition.”