According to research in the U.S. obese women get more aggressive ovarian cancers, have a shorter time before the cancer recurs and a shorter survival compared to women who are not obese.
Ovarian cancer can occur at any age, but is most common after the menopause. A woman's risk of getting ovarian cancer during her lifetime is about 1 in 58. The risk of getting this cancer and dying from it is 1 in 98.
Ovarian cancers are difficult to diagnose and by the time it is diagnosed, most women are in the late stages of the disease and about 70% die within five years, making it one of the most lethal cancers.
This is not the first time that obesity has been implicated in increasing the risk for developing certain cancers and obesity has also been linked with worse outcomes for some patients with cancer.
Other studies have found a compound called insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) is more evident in obese people than those who are slimmer and IGF-1 correlates with increased breast cancer risk in women.
This study however suggests fat tissue might also affect how a tumour progresses and the researchers believe fat cells excrete a hormone or protein that makes ovarian cancer cells grow more aggressively.
The researchers from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Research Center in California recently carried out an evaluation from data on body mass index and outcomes among patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
In a study which involved 216 patients the researchers looked at the disease course of epithelial ovarian cancer - the most common type of ovarian tumours, accounting for 90% of cases. They all had various stages of ovarian cancer and underwent surgery for their cancer at Cedars Sinai Medical Center between 1996 and 2003.