White fat stores excess energy, whereas brown and beige fat are thermogenic and dissipate energy as heat. Thermogenic adipose tissues markedly improve glucose and lipid homeostasis in mouse models, although the extent to which brown adipose tissue (BAT) influences metabolic and cardiovascular disease in humans is unclear 1,2 . Here we retrospectively categorized 134,529 18 F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography-computed tomography scans from 52,487 patients, by presence or absence of BAT, and used propensity score matching to assemble a study cohort. Scans in the study population were initially conducted for indications related to cancer diagnosis, treatment or surveillance, without previous stimulation. We report that individuals with BAT had lower prevalences of cardiometabolic diseases, and the presence of BAT was independently correlated with lower odds of type 2 diabetes, dyslipidemia, coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, congestive heart failure and hypertension. These findings were supported by improved blood glucose, triglyceride and high-density lipoprotein values.

Twelve cycles of single-agent paclitaxel administered to women with advanced ovarian cancer who attain a clinically defined complete response to initial platinum/paclitaxel-based chemotherapy significantly prolongs the duration of PFS.

Several PSA measures satisfied the surrogacy criteria for survival in a retrospective analysis of data from SWOG 99-16. However, these measures await prospective validation in future clinical trials of chemotherapy in men with androgen-independent prostate cancer.