Research
Hormonal
Bariatric surgery significantly reduces the incidence of specific obesity-related cancers, including hepatocellular, colorectal, pancreatic, gallbladder, breast, endometrial, and ovarian cancers.
Bariatric surgery offers significant protection against several specific types of cancer, particularly those linked to obesity and hormones (breast, endometrial, ovarian) and metabolic factors (liver, colorectal, pancreatic, gallbladder).
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
In specific cancers, bariatric surgery was associated with reduction in the future incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (RR 0.35, 95% CI 0.22–0.55, p < 0.00001), colorectal cancer (RR 0.63, CI 0.50–0.81, p = 0.0002), pancreatic cancer (RR 0.52, 95% CI 0.29–0.93, p = 0.03) and gallbladder cancer (RR 0.41, 95% CI 0.18–0.96, p = 0.04), as well as female specific cancers, including breast cancer (RR 0.56, 95% CI 0.44–0.71, p < 0.00001), endometrial cancer (RR 0.38, 95% CI 0.26–0.55, p < 0.00001) and ovarian cancer (RR 0.45, 95% CI 0.31–0.64, p < 0.0001).
Why this rating
Based on meta-analysis of multiple studies, though heterogeneity exists.
Source
Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Future Cancer Risk
Robert B. Wilson et al. · International Journal of Molecular Sciences · 2023
DOI 10.3390/ijms24076192
Meta-analysis · 32 studiesCited 121×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Bariatric surgery significantly reduces the overall incidence of cancer, obesity-related cancers, and cancer-associated mortality in patients with morbid obesity compared to conventional treatment.Good
- Bariatric surgery does NOT significantly reduce the incidence of esophageal, gastric, thyroid, kidney, prostate cancers, or multiple myeloma compared to conventional treatment.Good
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