Obesity, excessive body weight and haematological indices in patients with abdominal malignancies

Background. There is evidence that different types of abdominal malignancies may have associations with obesity and changes in haematological indices. Increased body weight and obesity may influence management and treatment results. The purpose was to study the clinical and pathogenetic implications of the most common haematological indices in patients with abdominal malignancies and excessive body weight. Materials and methods. This observational study involves a total of 151 patients with abdominal malignancies divided into study (n = 121, body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m2) and control (n = 30, BMI ≤ 29 kg/m2) groups. The diagnosis, staging, prevalence of the process, concomitant pathology, a number of anthropometric and statistical parameters were analysed, and various indices characterizing full spectre of haematological (red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets) changes were assessed. Results. Whereas quantitative data is different in overweight and normal BMI groups of patients with abdominal malignancies, the quality of red blood cells is generally worse if BMI exceeds 30 kg/m2. Majority of the mesenchymal blood stem cell variables show no significant dependence on BMI in abdominal malignancies’ patients, differences between both groups were statistically reliable only in case of reticulocyte ratio and their mean volume. Platelets, thrombocrit, mean platelet volume, and platelet distribution width were significantly higher in patients with BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2, depicting higher risk for thrombotic events in these cohort. Conclusions. Changes in haematological indices in patients with abdominal malignancies varied from insignificant to very high in relation to BMI. The most clinically relevant changes depending on high BMI were observed in platelets, indicating importance of obesity in occurrence of thrombotic complications in patients with abdominal malignancies.