Abstract
What's known on the subject? and What does the study add? Little is known on the association between obesity and urothelial carcinoma of the bladder (UCB). Most studies have shown that higher body mass index (BMI) is associated with higher rates of perioperative complications.
Only one study specifically investigated obesity and bladder cancer-specific outcomes and reported no significant association between higher BMI and disease-specific survival in patients with UCB treated with radical cystectomy. However, that study was limited by its small sample size and a high rate of preoperative therapies.
In contrast to the only previous study evaluating the association of BMI with oncological outcomes in UCB, we found that obesity (BMI 30kg/m2) was associated with features of biologically aggressive UCB and clinical outcomes after radical cystectomy and, even when adjusting for the effects of standard clinicopathological features, obesity remained an independent predictor of cancer recurrence, cancer-specific mortality and overall mortality. Objective To investigate the association between body mass index (BMI) and oncological outcomes in patients after radical cystectomy (RC) for urothelial carcinoma of the bladder (UCB) in a large multi-institutional series.