Anthropometric equation has sufficient diagnostic capacity to identify sarcopenia in women with breast cancer

Sarcopenia is a common condition in women with breast cancer, however still presents limitations for an effective diagnosis. This study aimed to evaluate the agreement and diagnostic accuracy of an anthropometric equation in diagnosing sarcopenia in women with breast cancer based on different constructs.

Cross-sectional study carried out with women with breast cancer aged ≥ 20 years. Sarcopenia was identified according to the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People 2 (EWGSOP2) criteria. Muscle strength was obtained by the handgrip strength test (HGS) and muscle mass (MM) by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and by the anthropometric predictive equation. For the diagnosis of sarcopenia, eight constructs were proposed based on the MM assessment method (equation or DXA) and different cutoff points. Agreement analyses using Cohen's Kappa test and diagnostic performance measures were performed. The significance level for all tests was 5%.

A total of 122 women, with a mean age of 55.3 ± 11.4 years, were evaluated. There was a predominance of brown participants (50.8%), insufficiently active (57.4%), with diagnosis time ≤ 3 months (54.1%), and with invasive breast carcinoma (69.7%). The prevalence of sarcopenia ranged from 3.3 to 8.2%, depending on the construct used. The constructs determined from the cutoff points < 16.0 kg/< 7.58 m² and < 23.0 kg/< 7.58 m² were the ones that showed the best ability to detect sarcopenia.

The anthropometric equation showed sufficient diagnostic capacity to be used as an alternative in identifying sarcopenia in women with breast cancer.