Impact of overweight on postoperative complications and oncological outcome after radical hepatectomy for metastatic colorectal cancer

Objective To evaluate the correlation between overweight and postoperative complications and prognosis after radical hepatectomy for colorectal liver metastasis (CRLM). Methods A total of 192 patients who underwent hepatectomy for colorectal liver metastases between January 2000 and March 2012 were eligible for the study. We retrospectively summarized their clinicopathological data, BMI index and postoperative complications, and investigated the relation between these data and complications and prognosis. Results Of the 192 patients, 109 cases were classified as overweight with a BMI ≥24 and 83 patients were classified as non-overweight with a BMI <24. Seventy-five complications occurred in 68 of the 192 patients (35.4%) who underwent hepatectomy. Surgical complications (P=0.428), operation time (P=0.837), and blood loss (P=0.272) were not statistically significantly associated with BMI. 173 patients were included to analyze the influence of overweight on oncologic outcome. The median survival for the overweight patients was 59 months, while that of non-overweight patients was 31 months (P=0.016). The overweight patients had a longer OS assessed by both univariate analysis (P=0.016) and multivariate analysis (P=0.031). However, no statistical differences in disease-free survival (DFS) were detected between the overweight and non-overweight groups (P=0.058). Conclusions Overweight is not independently associated with an increasing complication rate. BMI does not significantly affect the CRLM-DFS, and high BMI patients might have a better overall survival. Key words: Colorectal neoplasms; Neoplasm metastases, liver; Hepatectomy; Overweight; Postoperative complications; Prognosis