Body composition and survival in metastatic breast cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
A retrospective cohort study to investigate body composition and survival in metastatic breast cancer
IRAS ID
297665
Contact name
Ellen R Copson
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University Hospital Southampton
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Approximately only 1 in 4 women diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer (when the cancer has spread to other parts of the body), will live for more than five years. In women diagnosed with early breast cancer, those who are obese are more likely to die earlier and have more side-effects from their cancer treatment than those who are not obese. Obesity is determined by raised body mass index (BMI) which is calculated using height and weight. BMI does not take body composition into account, meaning the proportions of muscle, fat and bone in the body. Previously, research studies in other countries have used CT scans (scans which use x-rays to produce a three-dimensional image of the body, which is often used to stage breast cancer) to measure body composition in women with metastatic breast cancer. They found that poor muscle quality was linked to shorter survival and lower muscle quantity was related to the amount of severe chemotherapy side-effects women experienced. This suggests that it may be possible to use body composition measurements to help predict how long women with metastatic breast cancer will live and how likely they are to suffer from severe treatment side effects. Few studies have looked at how body composition changes during the course of metastatic breast cancer disease.
This study will use CT scans from deceased patients with metastatic breast cancer to describe how body composition changes over the course of disease and investigate the value of body composition measurements as prognostic factors for survival and response to chemotherapy.REC name
South Central - Oxford A Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/SC/0213
Date of REC Opinion
12 Jul 2021
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion