Body mass index (BMI) is a crude individual measure of general body weight status. Overweight (BMI of 25 to < 30) and obesity (BMI ≥ 30) have been linked to increased cancer risk and poorer cancer prognosis. Studies taking into account individuals’ lifetime exposure have shown that a longer duration of overweight is associated with an increased risk of cancer occurrence and that obesity can have different effects on tumour development at different life stages. But much more research is needed to fully understand the effect of lifelong weight trajectory on cancer outcomes.
Two main hypotheses underlie this SURVPOOL project:
The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of overweight and obesity duration over the life course on survival with breast and colorectal cancers by means of an international pooling project. The availability of data from various countries at different stages of the obesity epidemic will enable us to study the heterogeneity in overweight duration and the influence of other related and potentially confounding factors on cancer survival.
For any comments or queries about the SURVPOOL project and website, please contact the IARC SURVPOOL team at survival@iarc.fr.