Obesity has become a well-known risk factor for cancer, and with this in mind, the findings of a new study may come as a surprise; for patients with kidney cancer, being overweight or obese appeared to significantly increase their chances of survival.

Share on Pinterest Obese kidney cancer patients were found to have better survival than those of a normal weight.

Senior and corresponding author Dr. Toni K. Choueiri, director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA, and colleagues report their results in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Numerous studies have shown that individuals with a high body mass index (BMI) are at greater risk for numerous cancers, and kidney cancer is one of them.

According to the American Cancer Society, obesity can trigger changes in hormones that lead to renal cell carcinoma (RCC) – the most common form of kidney cancer, accounting for around 9 in 10 of all cases.

Being overweight or obese following a cancer diagnosis has also been associated with poorer survival, though some previous studies have indicated that this may not be the case with RCC.

For example, a 2013 study of more than 2,100 patients with RCC found that those who were overweight or obese had reduced disease progression and better survival than those of a normal weight.

Choueiri and colleagues decided to further investigate the link between weight and kidney cancer survival by analyzing data from four medical databases, including The Cancer Genome Atlas (TGCA) project and the International Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma Database Consortium (IMDC).