Background: Little progress has been made in determining the prognostic factors for children and adolescents with high-grade mature B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (HG B-NHL). Based on the important role of body mass index (BMI) in cancer, this study explored the effect of BMI on the prognosis of patients with HG B-NHL.
Methods: Patients aged <18 years with newly diagnosed HG B-NHL were enrolled. Patients were divided into normal, overweight, obese, and emaciated BMI groups according to the growth criteria for children and adolescents.
Results: In total, 435 patients were enrolled in this study. There were 329 (75.6%), 46 (10.6%), 13 (3.0%), and 47 (10.8%) patients stratified into the normal, overweight, obese, and emaciated BMI groups, respectively. The event-free survival and overall survival rates of the entire cohort were 89.3% and 92.4%, respectively. The 5-year event-free survival rate for the patients with obese BMI was worse than those with overweight BMI (76.2% vs. 95.6%, p = .04). The 5-year overall survival rate for the patients with emaciated BMI was worse than those with normal (84.5% vs. 93.1%, p = .04) or overweight BMI (84.5% vs. 97.7%, p = .03). Cox multivariate analysis showed that obese or emaciated BMI at diagnosis was associated with an increased risk of death (p = 0.04; HR, 2.26) and was identified as an independent adverse prognostic factor in pediatric HG B-NHL.
Conclusion: Obese or emaciated BMI at diagnosis is associated with poor prognosis in pediatric HG B-NHL and can be used for risk stratification.
Keywords: body mass index; event‐free survival; high‐grade mature B‐cell non‐Hodgkin lymphoma; overall survival; prognostic factor.
© 2024 American Cancer Society.