Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jun;29(6):3411-3420.
doi: 10.1007/s00520-021-06025-y. Epub 2021 Feb 6.

The association between sarcopenia and quality of life in patients undergoing colorectal cancer surgery: an exploratory study

Alex Besson  1   2 , Irene Deftereos  1   3 , Karla Gough  4   5 , Danielle Taylor  1   2 , Roland Shannon  1 , Justin M Yeung  6   7   8
Affiliations

The association between sarcopenia and quality of life in patients undergoing colorectal cancer surgery: an exploratory study

Alex Besson et al. Support Care Cancer. 2021 Jun.

Erratum in

Abstract

Objective: To describe changes in health-related quality of life (QoL) from before colorectal cancer (CRC) surgery to 1 and 3-month post-surgery in patients diagnosed pre-operatively as sarcopenic or non-sarcopenic by computed tomography (CT) analysis.

Methods: Secondary analysis of a prospective observational cohort study with one pre-operative and two post-operative assessments. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) were collected at each timepoint using Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Colorectal and the EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) questionnaires. Pre-operative staging CT scans of the third lumbar vertebra (axial slice) were analysed using Slice-O-Matic Software to determine if patients had CT defined sarcopenia by employing sex-specific threshold values for skeletal muscle index. Patient-reported outcome measure scores were compared with minimal clinical important difference estimates to determine if changes were clinically significant.

Results: Twenty-five of 40 patients were found to be sarcopenic. The difference between sarcopenic groups on the EQ-5D was medium-sized and clinically significant, with the sarcopenic group reporting lower health status. The non-sarcopenic group displayed a clinically significant reduction in physical wellbeing post-operatively. The sarcopenic group did not demonstrate a clinically important reduction in physical wellbeing. For functional wellbeing, the sarcopenic group recorded a clinically significant reduction at the 1-month timepoint, trending back towards baseline by the 3-month timepoint. The non-sarcopenic group recorded almost no change in functional scores.

Conclusion: This study explored the novel concept of the effect of sarcopenia on QoL in the CRC surgical setting. Clinically significant changes were identified at both post-operative timepoints. This highlights an important proof of concept that PROMs can detect meaningful clinical change in CRC patients in the context of sarcopenia and should be further explored.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer; Quality of life; Sarcopenia; Surgery.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Feletto E, Yu XQ, Lew J-B, St John DJB, Jenkins MA, Macrae FA et al (2019) Trends in colon and rectal cancer incidence in Australia from 1982 to 2014: analysis of data on over 375,000 cases. Cancer Epidemiol Prev Biomark 28(1):83–90 - DOI
    1. Siegel RL, Miller KD, Fedewa SA, Ahnen DJ, Meester RG, Barzi A et al (2017) Colorectal cancer statistics, 2017. CA Cancer J Clin 67(3):177–193 - DOI
    1. Koller M, Lorenz W (2002) Quality of life: a deconstruction for clinicians. J R Soc Med 95(10):481–488 - DOI
    1. Zerillo JA, Schouwenburg MG, van Bommel AC, Stowell C, Lippa J, Bauer D et al (2017) An international collaborative standardizing a comprehensive patient-centered outcomes measurement set for colorectal cancer. JAMA Oncol 3(5):686–694 - DOI
    1. Black N (2013) Patient reported outcome measures could help transform healthcare. BMJ. 346

LinkOut - more resources