Volume 25, Issue 108, February, 2021

Association between body mass index at diagnosis and outcome of children with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Gholamreza Bahoush¹, Zahra Rahmati^2♦, Fahimeh Soheilipour³

¹Department of Pediatrics, Ali-Asghar Children's Hospital, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
²Ali-Asghar Children's Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
³Department of Pediatrics, Hazrat-e Rasool General's Hospital, School of Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

^♦Corresponding author
Ali-Asghar Children's Hospital, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran; Email: zahrarahmati27@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT

Background: Several studies have been published on the effect of body weight at diagnosis on the outcome of children with leukemia, but the results are not the same. The aim of this investigation was to study the survival of children with ALL admitted to a tertiary center in a developing country. Methods and Materials: This retrospective cohort study was performed on with standard risk B-precursor ALL in Ali-Asghar Children's Hospital. Patients in the high-risk group, patients with Down syndrome, and patients who had undergone significant changes during the treatment protocol were also excluded from the study. After completing the questionnaire, BMI at the time of diagnosis was calculated and patients were divided into four groups: underweight, normal weight, overweight and obese. Finally, the results were analyzed using SPSS software, descriptive data was analyzed by descriptive analysis methods and survival rate was analyzed by Kaplan-Meyer method with considering 95% confidence interval. Results: 112 patients aged 1 to 10 years (m/f ≈ 1.2/1) were enrolled to the study. 5-year overall survival of all patients and event-free survival of all patients were obtained from analysis 96.40± 2.1% and 86.80± 3.6%, respectively. Also from the analysis, the overall 5-year survival of all patients based on the status of the body mass index was obtained for underweight 100%, normal weight 95.70±3%, obese and over-weight 92.3±7.4%. Finally, no significant relationship was observed between overall survival and BMI. Furthermore, 5-year event-free survival analysis of patients based on BMI status in underweight 86.10±6.6%, normal weight 86.10±5%, obese and over-weight 92.9±6.9% was achieved. Lastly, there was no statistically significant relationship between event-free survival and BMI. Conclusion: Based on the results of this study and their comparison from other studies in this field, it is concluded that overall survival in obese and overweight children is lower than normal weight and underweight children. These different results from some other studies suggest the need for more accurate prospective studies with larger sample sizes.

Keywords: Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Survival, BMI index

Medical Science, 2021, 25(108), 312-319

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