Cancer Research

New cancer research that has been conducted on the probable outcome of cases of colon cancer for people who develop the condition suggests a new factor to be accorded consideration when weighing the probable future of a person who has survived a brush with colon cancer. This new factor for understanding the progress of colon cancer is weight, which according to a study which was released in March 2010 through the pages of the journal Clinical Cancer Research is substantially tied in by statistical data to the probable survival of a person who has encountered the cancer. This new cancer research should provide a new means for thinking about the potential risks faced by a person who is faced with a diagnosis of colon cancer. In particular, it has been used by some researchers and physicians to suggest that one useful strategy for people who do have to face a struggle with the disease is to think about the weight they could lose and how that might affect their chances for surviving the cancer.

This program of cancer research was conducted at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester and involved a number of almost 4,400 patients being treated for the condition. The statistical figures which came out of this research indicated a tendency for obese colon cancer patients to be far more at risk than patients who had attained and were able to maintain more traditionally recommended levels of weight. These findings of the cancer research study produced particularly strong and indicative results for male patients, which researchers have speculated stems from the fact that male bodies are more prone to storing additional body weight in the belly. With these considerations in mind, the study showed obese colon cancer patients to be one-quarter to one-third more likely to die compared to individuals at a healthy weight level.

Despite this strongly suggestive finding, the researchers who conducted the cancer research have cautioned that the study suggests that a relationship exists between the chances of survival from colon cancer and the level of weight exhibited by a person, but that it is too soon to reach a conclusive summary of whether these factors directly bear on each other. The research attempted to maintain a level of applicability to this form of cancer by focusing on individuals manifesting Stage II or Stage III cancer, in which the effects of the disease have penetrated deeply into either the colon wall or into lymph nodes that are located nearby. Adjusting for other relevant factors in the rate of survival of colon cancer, which includes age and the stage to which the disease has progressed, showed that men who were very obese manifested a tendency to die of the disease that was thirty five times more great than that of men at a normal level of weight. One potential blind side that has been acknowledged by the researchers to exist in this cancer research study is consideration of factors like diet and exercise.