Obesity, inflammation and immunity: new insights into cancer development and progression

The global rise in obesity has emerged as a major public health challenge, closely linked to chronic systemic inflammation and profound alterations in immune function. Adipose tissue is now recognized as an active endocrine and immunological organ, capable of secreting cytokines, adipokines, and metabolic mediators that influence both innate and adaptive immunity. Persistent low-grade inflammation associated with excess adiposity disrupts metabolic homeostasis, promotes oxidative stress, and contributes to immune dysregulation. These processes drive metabolic disorders and create a tumor-permissive microenvironment that favors cancer initiation, progression, and therapy resistance. Although epidemiological studies have firmly demonstrated associations between obesity, inflammation, and increased cancer risk across tumor types, the mechanistic interplay between metabolic dysfunction, inflammatory pathways, and antitumor immunity remains incompletely understood.

This Research Topic aims to deepen the understanding of the bidirectional interactions between obesity, inflammation, and immunity in cancer development and progression. Despite growing evidence linking dysmetabolism and immune dysfunction to malignancy, critical mechanistic questions persist: How do obesity-induced inflammatory pathways reshape the tumor microenvironment? What are the immune cell populations that metabolic stress most affects? Can metabolic and immunologic biomarkers predict cancer risk, outcomes, or response to immunotherapy? Addressing these questions requires integrative approaches bridging immunology, oncology, inflammation, and metabolism. Ultimately, this topic seeks to identify actionable pathways that could lead to novel preventive strategies, therapeutic targets, and precision-medicine approaches tailored to cancer patients with obesity- and inflammation-related dysfunction.

This Research Topic welcomes contributions exploring the mechanisms linking obesity, inflammation, and immune dysregulation to cancer.
We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspective articles on themes that include, but are not limited to:
• epidemiologic evidence linking obesity and the development and/or cancer progression;
• prevention and treatment of cancer pathologies investigating approaches based on the modulation of metabolic or immune diseases;
• mechanisms linking obesity, inflammation, and immune dysregulation to cancer risk, tumor progression, therapeutic response, and survivorship;
• adipose (tissue)-immune (system) crosstalk;
• adipose tissue-cancer crosstalk;
• metabolic programming of immune cells;
• inflammation and metabolic biomarkers;
• obesity-associated modulation of the tumor microenvironment;
• preventive or therapeutic strategies targeting immunometabolic and inflammatory pathways.

Multidisciplinary and translational studies integrating clinical, molecular, and computational approaches are particularly welcome. Contributions should clearly articulate mechanistic insights, clinical implications, or innovative technologies advancing the understanding of how obesity, inflammation, and immune alterations influence cancer biology and therapeutic responses.

Please note that manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases that are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of the scope of this Research Topic.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Case Report
• Clinical Trial
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: obesity, inflammation, immunity, Cancer, Metabolism, Tumor microenvironment, Immunometabolism

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.