Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Low muscle mass and obesity in surgical patients are a prevalent phenomenom that is associated with outcomes such as higher surgical an clinical complications and poor. However, the significance of sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity in the liver transplantation (LT) population remains unclear. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of low skeletal muscle mass, muscle quality and sarcopenic obesity on patients awaiting LT.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed patients who underwent LT at our center, between January 2013 and January 2018. Body composition parameters including skeletal muscle mass index (SMI), intramuscular adipose tissue content (IMAC), visceral fat área (VFA) were evaluated by preoperative plain computed tomography imaging at the level of the third lumbar vertebra (L3) and also clinical and biochemical parameters were taken. This study defined sarcopenia as a low SMI (male <52.4 cm²/m²; female <38.5 cm²/m²) and obesity a VFA >100 cm².

Results: The study included 94 patients (76 men) with a mean age of 60,14 (DS 8,57), 72 (76.6%) had sarcopenia and 52 (55.3%) had sarcopenic obesity. Multivariate analysis identified chronic inflammation (P 0.04), sarcopenia (P 0.048) and renal function (P 0.035) as independent risk factors for death after LT.

Conclusion: Sarcopenia and sarcopenic obesity were highly prevalent in liver transplantation patients and predict worse survival outcomes. That exists a significant correlation between chronic inflamation and sarcopenic obesity. Novel programs focusing on optimizing nutrition and physical activiy could be useful in these patients.