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. 2023 Feb 15;12(4):1532.
doi: 10.3390/jcm12041532.

Prevalence of Sarcopenia in Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Francesco Pegreffi  1 , Alice Balestra  1 , Orazio De Lucia  2 , Lee Smith  3 , Mario Barbagallo  4 , Nicola Veronese  4
Affiliations

Prevalence of Sarcopenia in Knee Osteoarthritis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Francesco Pegreffi et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

An association between knee osteoarthritis (OA) and sarcopenia has been proposed, but the evidence is controversial, with the recent literature showing disparate results. Therefore, we aimed to perform a systematic review and meta-analysis to evaluate the prevalence of sarcopenia in knee OA patients compared to people not affected by this condition. We searched several databases until 22 February 2022. The data regarding prevalence were summarized using odds ratios (ORs) with their 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Among the 504 papers initially screened, 4 were included for a total of 7495 participants with a mean age of 68.4 years, who were mainly females (72.4%). The prevalence of sarcopenia in people with knee OA was 45.2%, whilst, in the controls, it was 31.2%. Pooling the data of the studies included that the prevalence of sarcopenia in knee OA was more than two times higher than in the control group (OR = 2.07; 95%CI: 1.43-3.00; I2 = 85%). This outcome did not suffer any publication bias. However, after removing an outlier study, the recalculated OR was 1.88. In conclusion, the presence of sarcopenia in knee OA patients was high, affecting one person in every two persons and was higher than in the control groups included.

Keywords: knee osteoarthritis; meta-analysis; sarcopenia.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flowchart.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Prevalence of sarcopenia in patients with knee osteoarthritis versus controls in cross-sectional studies [16,17,18,19].
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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