Visceral abdominal obesity--is there an increased prevalence in men presenting with testicular teratoma?

BACKGROUND: There is evidence to suggest a link between the accumulation of visceral abdominal adipose tissue and an increased incidence of prostate, endometrial, breast, and colonic cancer. PURPOSE: To investigate whether an increase in ratio of visceral to subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue is demonstrated in patients with testicular teratoma. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Following ethical approval, 22 male patients who had undergone staging computed tomography (CT) between 2004 and 2007 for testicular teratoma were identified from our database. Abdominal adipose tissue distribution for these 22 patients was compared with that of 22 control patients, standardized for age, sex, and body mass index. Visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue volumes were calculated from a single axial CT slice at the level of the umbilicus. A two-sample t test for the difference in volume ratio between the two groups was used. A P value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS: There was a statistically significant difference in the mean ratio of visceral to subcutaneous volumes between the teratoma patients and controls (P=0.02). The ratio in teratoma patients was 1.56 times greater than seen in control patients. CONCLUSION: Patients with testicular teratoma have a relatively greater proportion of abdominal visceral adipose tissue compared with controls. This is concordant with published literature for other malignancies.