Impact of sex, body mass index and initial pathologic diagnosis age on the incidence and prognosis of different types of cancer

Abstract Cancer represents a significant challenge for humankind, as early diagnosis and treatment are difficult to achieve. To systemically investigate the effect of sex, body mass index (BMI) and age on cancer incidence and prognosis, the data from 14,504 cases of cancer were downloaded from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). BMI was used to categorize each person as underweight, normal weight, overweight or obese. Two- and five-year survival rates were applied to estimate the prognosis for each cancer type. All