Prevalence and effect on prognosis of sarcopenia in patients with primary biliary cholangitis

Jiaqi Yang; Shuangshuang Jiang; Qingling Fan; Didi Wen; Yansheng Liu; Kemei Wang; Hui Yang; Changcun Guo; Xinmin Zhou; Guanya Guo; Yulong Shang; Ying Han

doi:10.3389/fmed.2024.1346165

Prevalence and effect on prognosis of sarcopenia in patients with primary biliary cholangitis

Front Med (Lausanne). 2024 Feb 29:11:1346165. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2024.1346165. eCollection 2024.

Authors

Jiaqi Yang^#¹, Shuangshuang Jiang^#¹, Qingling Fan^#¹, Didi Wen², Yansheng Liu¹, Kemei Wang¹, Hui Yang¹, Changcun Guo¹, Xinmin Zhou¹, Guanya Guo¹, Yulong Shang¹, Ying Han¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Digestive Diseases, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China.
² Department of Radiology, Xijing Hospital, Fourth Military Medical University, Xi'an, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Background: Sarcopenia adversely affects the treatment outcomes in Cirrhosis and NAFLD. However, such research is limited in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC) patients. This study was performed to examine the prevalence of sarcopenia and its impact on PBC patients' prognoses.

Methods: This study enrolled confirmed PBC patients who had an abdominal CT scan. Sarcopenia was determined by the L3-skeletal muscle index with a Chinese population-based cut-off value. Laboratory test values and liver stiffness measurements values were obtained from the electronic medical records.

Results: In total, 174 PBC patients with a median age of 54 (IQR, 48, 62) years old, were enrolled. 45 (25.9%) patients among them were diagnosed with sarcopenia. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression results illustrated that male gender (OR = 9.152, 95%CI = 3.131-26.751, p < 0.001) and LSM ≥ 12.8 kPa (OR = 4.539, 95%CI = 1.651, 12.478, p = 0.003) were the independent risk factors of sarcopenia in PBC patients. In the prognosis analysis, sarcopenia was determined as a risk factor for indicating adverse events in PBC patients (HR = 4.058, 95%CI = 1.955-8.424, p < 0.001) by Cox proportional hazards regression.

Conclusion: The current findings illustrate that comprehensive evaluation and management of sarcopenia may contribute to the improvement of treatment outcomes and life quality of PBC patients.

Keywords: nutrition; prevalence; primary biliary cholangitis; prognosis; sarcopenia.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82270551, 2023KJXX-026, and 2024RS-CXTD-79).