Handgrip Strength as an Important Bed Side Tool to Assess Malnutrition in Patient with Liver Disease

Malnutrition is frequently present in patients with cirrhosis. Anthropometric measures such as body mass index (BMI), mid arm muscle circumference (MAMC), triceps skin fold thickness (TST) and subjective global assessment (SGA) have some limitations in assessment of malnutrition. This study aims to determine the prevalence of malnutrition in non-hospitalized cirrhotic and chronic hepatitis patients and to assess handgrip (HG) strength as a tool for identifying malnutrition.

Consecutive patients of cirrhosis (n = 352), chronic hepatitis (n = 189) and healthy controls (n = 159) were enrolled. All patients underwent MAMC, TST, HG and SGA assessment. Malnutrition was diagnosed on basis of SGA score. Values of MAMC, TST and HG below the 5th percentile or less than 60% of healthy controls were considered as abnormal.

According to SGA (taken as standard) 24% patients with chronic hepatitis and 56% of patients with cirrhosis had malnutrition (P = 0.001). In patients with chronic hepatitis prevalence of malnutrition according to MAMC (12%), TST (31%) and HG (18%). In patients with cirrhosis prevalence of malnutrition according to MAMC (27%), TST (60%) and HG (42%). HG exercise strength had the highest area under curve 0.82 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.78-0.86, P = 0.001) compared to MAMC 0.60 (95% CI 0.55-0.64, P = 0.001) and TST 0.65 (95% CI 0.61-0.69, P = 0.001) for assessing malnutrition. On comparison of HG, TST and MAMC, the sensitivity was 67%, 60% and 31%, respectively, Specificity was 95%, 71% and 89%, respectively, and diagnostic accuracy was 87%, 67% and 71%, respectively.

HG strength is an excellent tool to assess at bed side the nutrition status in patients with cirrhosis and has the highest diagnostic accuracy compared to other anthropometric tests such as MAMC and TST.