Prevalence of Obesity in Patients with Postoperative Breast Cancer: Effect of Tamoxifen and Abdominal Fat Distribution on Computed Tomography

Abstract

Background: The objective of our study was to determine the prevalence of obesity, to examine the distribution of abdominal adipose tissue in patients with post-operative breast cancer and to analyze the association between obesity and tamoxifen. Methods: Among patients with breast cancer who underwent surgery, 325 patients who received tamoxifen and 123 patients who did not receive tamoxifen were selected for this study. In all the patients abdominal computed tomography (CT) (n=448) was performed as a follow-up examination. Sagittal diameters of subcutaneous fat in the anterior abdominal wall and peritoneal cavity were measured as a representative index for subcutaneous fat thickness (SFT) and visceral fat thickness (VFT), respectively. The same measurements were obtained from the CT images of 60 disease-free women, who were included as the control group. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in either SFT or VFT between the control group and post-operative breast cancer group (P=0.670 or P=0.136, respectively). Tamoxifen was not correlated with either SFT or VFT (P=0.051 or P=0.054, respectively) rather the non-tamoxifen group had higher VFT than the tamoxifen group. However, the difference was marginally significant. Cholesterol level was not significantly correlated with either SFT or VFT (R=0.014 and R=0.031, respectively). Conclusion: We failed to find evidence of obesity in patients with postoperative breast cancer and there was no significant weight gain during the course of treatment with tamoxifen. There was no difference in abdominal fat distribution between patients with breast cancer and disease-free women.