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A Novel Sarcopenia Screening Score Based on Thyroid Function Parameters in Euthyroid Middle-Aged and Elderly Chinese
Fei Ding1,2,3, Jirong Yue4, Yong He1,2,3
1Department of Laboratory Medicine, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China, scu.edu.cn.
Background:
This research aims to develop an alternative sarcopenia screening score based on thyroid hormone function parameters, intended for screening and validating the probability of having sarcopenia among middle-aged and elderly participants with normal thyroid function tests in China.
Methods:
This multicenter, cross-sectional study assessed the prevalence of sarcopenia among 3,858 thyroid-healthy Chinese adults across hospitals in western China hospitals. Participants were randomized to exploratory and validation cohorts. After applying Lasso to select variables, multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted. We developed a novel sarcopenia screening score from exploratory data, subsequently validating it internally across both cohorts.
Results:
The new sarcopenia screening score comprises five variables: age, body mass index (BMI), calf circumference (CC), aspartate aminotransferase/alanine aminotransferase ratio (AST/ALT), and free T4 (FT4), with a scoring range of 0-14. The area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve for screening for sarcopenia was 0.845 (95% CI: 0.831-0.859) in the exploratory group and 0.854 (95% CI: 0.831-0.874) in the validation group. At the optimal cutoff of 3, the sensitivity and specificity were 78.3% and 75.1%, respectively, in the exploratory cohort; in the validation cohort, with a cutoff of 4, sensitivity and specificity were 68.4% and 87.0%. The Brier score was 0.092 in the exploratory cohort and 0.068 in the validation cohort, confirming satisfactory calibration.
Conclusion:
The newly developed sarcopenia screening score shows promise as a practical tool for identifying sarcopenia in middle-aged and elderly participants with normal thyroid function tests in China.
