Impact of body mass index on the prognosis of Korean women with endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the uterus: A cohort study

OBJECTIVE: To analyze how pretreatment body mass index relates to known endometrial cancer prognostic factors and how it impacts the disease-free survival and cause-specific survival of Korean women with endometrial cancer. METHODS: The patients were divided into the non-obese (<25 kg/m(2)) and obese groups (≥25 kg/m(2)) according to their pretreatment body mass index. The 25 kg/m(2) body mass index cut-off was based on the World Health Organization criteria for Asian people. The two groups were compared in terms of their clinicopathological characteristics and survival outcomes. RESULTS: A total of 213 consecutive patients with endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the uterus met the eligibility criteria of this study and were included in the analysis. Of these patients, 105 patients had a body mass index less than 25 kg/m(2) (non-obese group) and 108 patients had a body mass index equal to or more than 25 kg/m(2) (obese group). The two groups did not differ in terms of age, menopause, parity, height, FIGO (International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology) stage, tumor grade, tumor size, myometrial invasion, lymphovascular space invasion, cytology, and lymph node metastasis. Body mass index was not a significant factor for disease-free and cause-specific survival in univariate analysis, and after adjusting for all prognostic factors that were significant in univariate analysis, it did not associate significantly with disease-free and cause-specific survival. CONCLUSION: In Korean women with endometrioid adenocarcinoma of the uterus, a high pretreatment body mass index did not associate with other prognostic factors and had little impact on the disease-free survival and cause-specific survival of these women.