Background and objectives: Does a link exist between obesity and soft-tissue sarcoma outcomes? We hypothesized that soft-tissue sarcomas in patients with obesity may lead to larger tumors at detection, with an increased risk for a more complex surgical excision, wound healing-related complications, higher stage at presentation, and decreased survival.
Methods: One hundred thirty-nine and patients with soft-tissue sarcoma were retrospectively evaluated over 10 years. Patients were divided into 2 cohorts based on the World Health Organization body mass index (BMI) obesity grouping. A BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 was classified as obese and a BMI < 30 kg/m2 was classified as nonobese.
Results: Eighty-five nonobese and 54 obese individuals were evaluated. The median tumor diameter was 50% larger (P = .024) and the overall complication rate was 1.7-fold higher in patients with obesity (P = .0032). Patients with obesity also had a statistically significantly higher rate of complex wound closures. In multivariable logistic regression, obesity remained a highly significant factor favoring complications after the surgical treatment of soft-tissue sarcoma (odds ratio = 3.66, 95% confidence interval = 1.54-8.71; P = .0033). No statistically significant differences were noted on comparing groups for the incidence of metastatic spread or survival.
Conclusions: These findings suggest that obesity is associated with larger tumors, a higher incidence of wound complications, and greater use of complex wound-closure methods.
Keywords: delayed detection; outcomes; survival.
© 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.