Resolving the Paradox of Obesity and Risk for Cervical Cancer

Obesity's prevalence in the U.S. has tripled in the last 30 years. Has this trend affected screening for and prevalence of cervical cancer? Investigators at Kaiser Permanente of Northern California conducted a retrospective cohort study to assess the association between body-mass index (BMI) and cervical cancer screening outcomes. The Kaiser system implemented triennial cytology and human papillomavirus cotesting in 2003 for women aged ≥30; this study involved some 944,000 women (age range, 30–49) screened for cervical precancer (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 3 and adenocarcinoma in situ) and cervical cancer (squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and microinvasive cancer) from 2003 through 2015. Overall, 40% of participants we…