Prevalence of Stroke-Related Sarcopenia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Sarcopenia can lead to negative outcomes for the functionality of individuals post-stroke. Therefore, understanding the prevalence of sarcopenia after a stroke is extremely important in order to plan specific interventions. To provide an up-to-date meta-analysis to investigate the prevalence of sarcopenia in individuals after stroke.

This systematic review was carried out in the MEDLINE, SCIELO, EMBASE, LILACS, PEDro, EBSCOHOST, AMED and gray literature databases, with no date or language restrictions.

Of the 1142 articles found, 31 were included in the review, totaling 7357 post-stroke individuals. Of these, 74.1% were in an in-hospital setting and 38.7% were in the acute post-injury phase. Most of the studies were carried out in Asia (80.6%) and diagnosed sarcopenia according to the Asian Working Group of Sarcopenia consensus (58%). A low-quality screening prevalence of 42.4% (95% CI 13.0%-78.5%; I² = 99%) and 37.2% (95% CI 30.7%-44.2%; I² = 97%) of sarcopenia diagnoses with moderate-quality evidence were observed.

High prevalence rates of post-stroke sarcopenia were observed, with high variability in relation to the form used for diagnosis and screening. It is important to highlight additional points observed such as a lack of consensus on definition and diagnostic criteria for sarcopenia, a variation of tools to measure body mass, a lack of consensus regarding the side of the assessment and a high heterogeneity of the samples analyzed, which can directly impact on the results found.