Birth weight and future body mass in survivors of childhood brain tumors

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M Constantine Samaan

McMaster University, Canada

: J Pharm Sci Emerg Drugs

Abstract

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Survivors of Childhood Brain Tumors (SCBT) are an emerging group of cancer survivors. With the increased survival rates driven by advances in the mechanisms driving cancer and its therapy, it has become clear that this group is at risk of premature mortality. While this was mainly driven by tumor recurrence and secondary tumors, recent evidence suggest that cardiometabolic diseases including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes are contributing to the mortality in this population as survivors are having a prolonged lifespan. It is critical that the determinants of these cardiometabolic disorders are identified to help the development of effective treatment and prevention strategies to improve outcomes. Birth weight has been shown to be a predictor of future obesity that leads to increased cardiometabolic disorders in the general population, but this has not been studied in the SCBT group. We conducted a cross-sectional study to address this question. We included SCBT (n-78) and non-cancer controls (n=133). We discovered that a higher birth weight is associated with higher Body Mass Index (BMI) z-scores, which may indicate that birth weight can be one of the predicotrs of who is at risk of higher body mass which allws the identification of those children who are potentially at risk of future cardiometabolic disorders.

Biography

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M. Constantine Samaan is a Staff Physician at the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, McMaster Children’s Hospital. He also serves an Associate Professor at the Department of Pediatrics, McMaster University, Canada. His program of research is focused on understanding the determinants of diabetes in high-risk pediatrics populations.

E-mail: samaanc@mcmaster.ca