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. 2024 Aug;12(15):e16173.
doi: 10.14814/phy2.16173.

A sarcopenia screening test predicts mortality among hospitalized cancer patients

Wen-Li Lin  1   2 , Jyh-Jou Chen  3 , Li-Min Wu  4   5 , Wen-Tsung Huang  6 , How-Ran Guo  7   8 , Thi-Hoang-Yen Nguyen  7
Affiliations

A sarcopenia screening test predicts mortality among hospitalized cancer patients

Wen-Li Lin et al. Physiol Rep. 2024 Aug.

Abstract

This study investigated the ability of a sarcopenia screening test to predict mortality among cancer inpatients. We conducted a prospective study of patients admitted to the oncology ward of a teaching hospital in southern Taiwan. Over a 5-month period, 82 patients were enrolled for evaluation and were followed for 3 years. All participants received a comprehensive assessment at the time of admission, including Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status, cognitive ability, nutrition index, body mass index, and short physical performance battery (SPPB). Age, ECOG performance status, dementia, SPPB score, and albumin level were associated with sarcopenia. Of the enrolled participants, 53 (64.6%) were diagnosed with sarcopenia. Patients with sarcopenia were associated with worse overall survival (OS) than patients without sarcopenia (28.8% vs. 82%, p = 0.01). Metastasis (hazard ratio [HR]: 5.166; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.358-19.656) and albumin level (HR: 4.346; 95% CI: 1.493-12.654) were independent and significant predictors of OS for the whole study population. Age was a predictor of 2-year all-cause mortality among patients aged ≥65 years but not among those aged <65 years (OS: 25.6% vs. 100%, p = 0.04). To summarize, the sarcopenia screening results were found to predict OS and all-cause mortality and may be helpful for patient stratification during in-hospital care.

Keywords: cancer; hospitalization; mortality; prediction; sarcopenia; screening.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research reported here was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Flow chart of the selection of study participants.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Overall survival of patients with and without sarcopenia.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Overall survival of patients with and without sarcopenia aged <65 years (a) and ≥65 years (b).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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