Comparison between nutritional assessment and computed tomography analysis of muscle mass in patients with lung cancer

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare nutritional assessment and computed tomography (CT) analysis of muscle mass in lung cancer patients. Methods: This retrospective, singlecenter study included 55 patients diagnosed with lung cancer who underwent surgical resection. The result of the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) was compared with the muscle mass index assessed by CT at L3 level in the preoperative period. Results: Mean patient age was 64.9 years and 52.7% were male. According to the body mass index (BMI), only 21.8% had underweight. Most patients (72.7%) presented malnutrition on the PG-SGA and 52.7% had low muscle mass on CT analysis, however there was no statistically significant correlation between these methods (p=0.74). The association between the analysis of CT and the BMI demonstrated that obese patients had a lower rate of low muscle mass compared to the other groups (p=0.03). There was no statistically significant difference in the length of hospital stay and overall survival both by the PG-SGA and the CT analysis (p>0.05). Conclusions: In conclusion, lung cancer patients have a high prevalence of malnutrition, although we have not observed a correlation between PG-SGA and muscle mass CT analysis.