Retrospective cohort study of association of obesity with outcomes of adoptive cell therapy for solid tumors

A retrospective cohort study included patients receiving adoptive cell therapy (ACT) for advanced solid tumors at MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston, TX) from August 2017 to August 2023. Among 95 consecutive patients, 41.1% had normal weight, 27.4% had overweight, 28.4% had obesity, and 3.2% had underweight. The median progression-free and overall survival were 2.8 months (95% CI 2.3-3.5) and 8.4 months (6.4-11.0). The risk of death among patients with obesity was significantly lower than among those with normal weight (HR 0.56; p=0.045). BMI was not associated with the development of cytokine release syndrome. However, patients with obesity had a lower rate of immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome than those with normal weight (0% versus 23.1%; p=0.049). The authors write that these results should be viewed as exploratory owing to study limitations, including heterogeneity and limited power for subgroup analysis.