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 Feb 16;13(2):635.
doi: 10.3390/nu13020635.

Sarcopenia Risk Evaluation in a Sample of Hospitalized Elderly Men and Women: Combined Use of the Mini Sarcopenia Risk Assessment (MSRA) and the SARC-F

Andrea P Rossi  1 , Cesare Caliari  1 , Silvia Urbani  1 , Francesco Fantin  1 , Piero Brandimarte  1 , Angela Martini  1 , Elena Zoico  1 , Giulia Zoso  1 , Alessio Babbanini  1 , Alfredo Zanotelli  1 , Mauro Zamboni  1
Affiliations

Sarcopenia Risk Evaluation in a Sample of Hospitalized Elderly Men and Women: Combined Use of the Mini Sarcopenia Risk Assessment (MSRA) and the SARC-F

Andrea P Rossi et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Background: SARC-F and Mini Sarcopenia Risk Assessment (MSRA) questionnaires have been proposed as screening tools to identify patients at risk of sarcopenia. The aim of this study is to test the use of SARC-F and MSRA, alone and combined, as a pre-screening tool for sarcopenia in geriatric inpatients.

Methods: 152 subjects, 94 men and 58 women, aged 70 to 94, underwent muscle mass evaluation by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), muscle strength evaluation by handgrip, and completed the MSRA, SARC-F and Activity of daily living (ADL) questionnaires.

Results: 66 subjects (43.4%) were classified as sarcopenic according to the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People 2 (EWGSOP2) criteria. The 7-item SARC-F and MRSA and 5-item MSRA showed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.666 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.542-0.789), 0.730 (95% CI: 0.617-0.842) and 0.710 (95% CI: 0.593-0.827), respectively. The optimal cut-off points for sarcopenia detection were determined for each questionnaire using the Youden index method. The newly calculated cut-off points were ≤25 and ≤40 for MSRA 7- and 5-items, respectively. The ideal cut-off for the SARC-F was a score ≥3. Applying this new cut-off in our study population, sensitivity and specificity of the 7-item MSRA were 0.757 and 0.651, and 0.688 and 0.679 for the 5-item MSRA, respectively. Sensitivity and specificity of SARC-F were 0.524 and 0.765, respectively. The combined use of the 7-item SARC-F and MSRA improved the accuracy in sarcopenia diagnosis, with a specificity and sensitivity of 1.00 and 0.636.

Conclusion: 7-item SARC-F and MSRA may be co-administered in hospital wards as an easy, feasible, first-line tool to identify sarcopenic subjects.

Keywords: muscle strength; physical limitations; sarcopenia; screening.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
ROC curve associated with SARC-F, 7-item MSRA and 5-item MSRA score. MSRA = Mini Sarcopenia Risk Assessment. ROC = receiving operating characteristics; MSRA = Mini Sarcopenia Risk Assessment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Cruz-Jentoft A.J., Bahat G., Bauer J., Boirie Y., Bruyère O., Cederholm T., Cooper C., Landi F., Rolland Y., Sayer A.A., et al. Sarcopenia: Revised European consensus on definition and diagnosis. Age Ageing. 2019;48:16–31. doi: 10.1093/ageing/afy169. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Cerri A.P., Bellelli G., Mazzone A., Pittella F., Landi F., Zambon A., Annoni G. Sarcopenia and malnutrition in acutely ill hospitalized elderly: Prevalence and outcomes. Clin. Nutr. 2015;34:745–751. doi: 10.1016/j.clnu.2014.08.015. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Batsis J.A., Mackenzie T.A., Barre L.K., LopezJimenez F., Bartels S.J. Sarcopenia, sarcopenic obesity and mortality in older adults: Results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 2014;68:1001–1007. doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2014.117. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Goodpaster B.H., Park S.W., Harris T.B., Kritchevsky S.B., Nevitt M., Schwartz A.V., Simonsick E.M., Tylavsky F.A., Visser M., Newman A.B., et al. The Loss of Skeletal Muscle Strength, Mass, and Quality in Older Adults: The Health, Aging and Body Composition Study. J. Gerontol. Ser. A Biol. Sci. Med. Sci. 2006;61:1059–1064. doi: 10.1093/gerona/61.10.1059. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rossi A.P., Harris T.B., Fantin F., Armellini F., Zamboni M. The multidomain mobility lab in older persons: From bench to bedside. The assessment of body composition in older persons at risk of mobility limitations. Curr. Pharm. Des. 2014;20:3245–3255. doi: 10.2174/13816128113196660694. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources