Impact of Body Mass Index on Prognosis for Breast Cancer Patients

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of body mass index (BMI) on the prognosis for patients with breast cancer within the context of race (African-American versus Caucasian) and ethnicity (Hispanic versus Non-Hispanic). Overall, this study included 1,368 female breast cancer patients diagnosed between 2007 and 2010 with electronic medical record data accrued from a large Florida hospital network. Non-Hispanic black patients comprised 8.77% of the cohort and Hispanic patients made up 7.56%. Multivariate analysis revealed that breast cancer death rate was increased over 2.6-fold for underweight patients ubiquitously, regardless of race or ethnicity. Patients overweight or obese did not have an increased hazard rate compared to those of normal weight. Importantly, the mechanism for the poorer prognosis for underweight patients needs to be defined. We suggest the use of a low BMI as a high-risk factor for breast-cancer mortality in all racial and ethnic populations.