Being overweight or obese is a well-known risk factor for kidney cancer. This study, published in the Journal of Urology, looked at how body mass index (BMI) affects the survival of a total of 50,717 kidney cancer patients.

Overweight and obese patients were associated with improved survival compared to patients with normal BMI, while underweight patients had a lower cancer-specific survival rate.

There were drawbacks to the study design, but a favourable effect of BMI was reported for kidney cancer outcomes. However, due big differences between the studies used in this retrospective analysis, further research in needed to confirm the significance of BMI on kidney cancer prognosis.

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