Importance: Clinical studies confirm that obesity is a risk factor for recurrence in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive (HR+) breast cancer. Evidence suggests that women with obesity do not obtain similar protection from aromatase inhibitors as women with healthy weight.
Objective: To examine the associations of body mass index (BMI) with recurrence.
Design, setting, and participants: The cohort study was conducted using data from the Danish Breast Cancer Group and enrolled postmenopausal women diagnosed with stage I to III HR+ breast cancer from 1998 through 2016. Data analysis was conducted from November 2022 to April 2023.
Exposures: BMI was classified as (1) healthy weight (18.5-24.9), (2) overweight (25.0-29.9), (3) obesity (30.0-34.9), and (4) severe obesity (≥35.0) using the World Health Organization guidelines. Healthy weight was considered the reference group in statistical analyses.
Main outcomes and measures: Follow-up began 6 months after breast cancer surgery and continued until the first event of recurrence, contralateral breast cancer, new primary malignant neoplasm, death, emigration, end of clinical follow-up at 10 years, or September 25, 2018. Cox regression was used to estimate crude and adjusted hazard ratios with 95% CIs, adjusting for patient, tumor, and treatment characteristics.
Results: A total of 13 230 patients (median [IQR] age at diagnosis, 64.4 [58.6-70.2] years) with information on BMI were enrolled. There were 1587 recurrences with a median (IQR) potential estimated follow-up of 6.2 (3.6-8.5) years. Multivariable analyses revealed increased recurrence hazards associated with obesity (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.18 [95% CI, 1.01-1.37]) and severe obesity (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.32 [95% CI, 1.08-1.62]) vs patients with healthy weight. Patients with overweight had a greater risk, but the results were not statistically significant (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.10 [95% CI, 0.97-1.24]).
Conclusions and relevance: In this study, obesity was associated with an increased risk of breast cancer recurrence among postmenopausal patients with HR+ early-stage breast cancer treated with aromatase inhibitors. Physicians should be aware of the significance of obesity on breast cancer outcomes to secure optimal treatment benefit in all patients.