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. 2019 Apr;30(4):355-363.
doi: 10.1007/s10552-019-01139-5. Epub 2019 Feb 20.

Metabolic syndrome and risk of endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women: a prospective study

Rhonda S Arthur  1 , Geoffrey C Kabat  2 , Mimi Y Kim  3 , Robert A Wild  4 , Aladdin H Shadyab  5 , Jean Wactawski-Wende  6 , Gloria Y F Ho  7 , Katherine W Reeves  8 , Lewis H Kuller  9 , Juhua Luo  10 , Jennifer Beebe-Dimmer  11 , Michael S Simon  11 , Howard Strickler  3 , Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller  3 , Thomas E Rohan  3
Affiliations

Metabolic syndrome and risk of endometrial cancer in postmenopausal women: a prospective study

Rhonda S Arthur et al. Cancer Causes Control. 2019 Apr.

Abstract

Background: Obesity is a strong risk factor for endometrial cancer, but it is unclear whether metabolic syndrome (MetS) contributes to endometrial cancer risk over and above the contribution of obesity.

Methods: We examined the association of MetS and its components with risk of endometrial cancer in a sub-cohort of 24,210 women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative cohort study. Two variants of the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III definition of the MetS were used: one including and one excluding waist circumference (WC). Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate the association of the study exposures with disease risk.

Results: When WC was included in the definition, MetS showed an approximately two-fold increase in endometrial cancer risk (HR 2.20; 95% CI 1.61-3.02); however, when WC was excluded, MetS was no longer associated with risk. We also observed that women with hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia and hypertension, in combination, had almost a twofold increased risk of endometrial cancer, independent of WC (HR 1.94; 95% CI 1.09, 3.46). Glucose, and, in particular, WC and body mass index were also positively associated with risk.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that MetS may predict risk of endometrial cancer independent of obesity among women with the remaining four Mets components.

Keywords: Abdominal adiposity; Endometrial cancer; Metabolic syndrome; Obesity; Postmenopausal women.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

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