Global Cancer News

Popular chemotherapy drug may be less effective in overweight and obese women

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Breast cancer patients who are overweight or obese might benefit less from treatment with docetaxel, a common chemotherapy drug, than lean patients. An international team of researchers based this conclusion on a retrospective analysis of data from a large clinical trial. In most European countries, more than 50% of women are overweight or obese. In the United States this is the case for over 63% of women and this proportion is expected to further increase in the coming years. It is not widely known, but obese women have a higher risk of getting breast cancer and obese breast cancer patients have a higher risk of relapsing. Moreover, while many cancer patients are overweight or obese, the efficacy of anticancer drugs according to their BMI is generally not known.

To learn more about the study, see here: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-popular-chemotherapy-drug-effective-overweight.html