Obesity confers an increased incidence and poorer clinical prognosis in more than 10 cancer types. Paradoxically, obesity may provide protection from poor outcomes in lung cancer. Mechanisms for the obesity-cancer links are not fully elucidated, with altered glucose metabolism being a promising candidate. Using 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron-emission-tomography/computed tomography images from The Cancer Imaging Archive, we explored the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and glucose metabolism in several cancers. In 188 patients (BMI mean [SD] = 27.7 [5.1], range = 17.4-49.3 kg/m2), higher BMI was associated with greater tumor glucose uptake in breast cancer (r = 0.36; P = .02) and with lower tumor glucose uptake in non-small cell lung cancer (r = -0.26; P = .048) using two-sided Pearson correlations. No relationship was observed in soft tissue sarcoma or squamous cell carcinoma. Harnessing the National Cancer Institute's open-access database, we demonstrate altered tumor glucose metabolism as a potential mechanism for the detrimental and protective effects of obesity on breast and lung cancer, respectively.
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press.