ESPE Yearbook of Paediatric Endocrinology

To read the full abstract: J Adolesc Young Adult Oncol. 2017;6:294-298

The difficulties in defining obesity in childhood cancer survivors have been emphasised. In these patients, body mass index (BMI) has been confirmed to be a poor predictor of body fatness, because of their impaired linear growth, body composition changes (decreased lean mass and fat redistribution) and abdominal adiposity. The present study focused on arm anthropometry as a simple tool to assess fat mass and lean body mass. The authors suggest that arm anthropometry could represent a valuable tool in low- and middle-income countries, where the vast majority of young people with cancer live and the access to sophisticated expensive measures of body composition is limited. However, a significant limitation of this study is its failure to consider and differentiate abdominal obesity. Abdominal obesity can be easily measured by the waist to hip ratio in adults with normal stature, and by the waist-to-height ratio in growing children and short adults. Both these parameters have been strongly associated with cardiovascular disease, an emerging problem in childhood cancer survivors.

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