Sarcopenia is a progressive and generalised skeletal muscle disorder involving the accelerated loss of muscle mass and function. Muscle loss that is associated with increased adverse outcomes including falls, functional decline, frailty, and mortality. Psoas muscle area (TPA) and density (PMD) represent an analytic morphometry and an easy way to define sarcopenia. The aim of this study was to validate these morphometric predictors in survival and cardiovascular endpoints on TASC D AI-PAD patients.
In this study, TPA was superior to PMD as a morphometric predictor, obtaining an AUROC of 0.702 (p=0.045) while PMD had an AUROC of 0.592 (p=0.360) for MACCE concerning patients with aorto-iliac TASC D lesions. TPA below threshold had an 18-month survival of 32.6 ± 14.7% and above 90.5 ± 4.5%. PMD below threshold had an 18-month survival of 67.1 ± 9.4% while above threshold had an 18-month survival of 85.6 ± 7.8%.
Here, we further explored the sarcopenia as a predictor of outcomes in vascular surgery and should be seen as a stimulus for further research in allocation of surgical and endovascular procedures, decreasing costs by preventing patients from receiving costly and potentially unnecessary procedures
