The association between diabetes, comorbidities, body mass index and all-cause and cause-specific mortality among women with endometrial cancer.

OBJECTIVE

Although endometrial cancer (EC) is associated with relatively good survival rates overall, women diagnosed with high-risk subtypes have poor outcomes. We examined the relationship between lifestyle factors and subsequent all-cause, cancer-specific and non-cancer related survival.

METHODS

In a cohort of 1359 Australian women diagnosed with incident EC between 2005 and 2007 pre-diagnostic information was collected by interview at recruitment. Clinical and survival information was abstracted from women's medical records, supplemented by linkage to the Australian National Death Index. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for all-cause and cause-specific survival (EC death vs. non-EC death) associated with each exposure, overall and by risk group (low-grade endometrioid vs. high-grade endometrioid and non-endometrioid).

RESULTS

After a median follow-up of 7.1 years, 179 (13%) women had died, with 123 (69%) deaths from EC. As expected, elevated body mass index (BMI), diabetes and the presence of other co-morbidities were associated with a significantly increased risk of all-cause and non-cancer related death. Women with diabetes had higher cancer-specific mortality rates (HR 2.09, 95% CI 1.31-3.35), particularly those who had were not obese (HR 4.13, 95% CI 2.20-7.76). The presence of ≥2 other co-morbidities (excluding diabetes) was also associated with increased risk of cancer-specific mortality (HR 3.09, 95% CI 1.21-7.89). The patterns were generally similar for women with low-grade and high-grade endometrioid/non-endometrioid EC.

CONCLUSION

Our findings demonstrate the importance of diabetes, other co-morbidities and obesity as negative predictors of mortality among women with EC but that the risks differ for cancer-specific and non-cancer related mortality.