Body mass index associated with childhood and adolescent high-risk B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia risk: A Children’s Oncology Group report

Ghosh T, Richardson M, Gordon PM, Ryder JR, Spector LG, Turcotte LM. Body mass index associated with childhood and adolescent high-risk B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia risk: A Children’s Oncology Group report. Cancer Med. 2020 Sep;9(18):6825-6835. doi: 10.1002/cam4.3334. Epub 2020 Jul 24. PubMed PMID: 32706183; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC7520304.

Obesity is a risk factor for many adulthood cancers, but its role in childhood, adolescent, and young adult (AYA) cancer is unknown. Childhood and AYA acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) incidence and obesity prevalence have shown concurrent increases. We sought to identify whether obesity may be a risk factor for childhood and AYA ALL. Characteristics from individuals with ALL, aged 2‐30 years, diagnosed 2004‐2017 and treated on Children’s Oncology Group (COG) protocols with available pre‐treatment anthropometric data (N = 4726) were compared to National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey controls (COG AALL17D2). Body mass index (BMI) was defined using standard CDC definitions. Multivariate conditional logistic regression assessed associations between BMI and ALL with additional analyses stratified by sex and race/ethnicity.