Prognostic impact of sarcopenia in patients with head and neck cancer treated with surgery or radiation: A meta-analysis

Yukinori Takenaka, Norihiko Takemoto, Ryohei Oya and Hidenori Inohara

PLOS ONE, 2021, vol. 16, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: Background: The objective of this study was to compare the prognostic impact of sarcopenia in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) treated with surgery or radiation. Methods: We systematically searched electronic databases to identify articles reporting the impact of sarcopenia on the prognosis of patients with HNC. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and disease-specific survival (DSS) were extracted and pooled. HR according to treatment modality were estimated using random-effects models. Statistical analyses were carried out using the Comprehensive Meta-Analysis software. Results: In total, 18 studies enrolling 3,233 patients were included. Sarcopenia was associated with poor OS in both surgery and radiotherapy groups (hazard ratio [HR] 2.50, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.95–3.21; HR 1.63, 95% CI 1.40–1.90, respectively). The HR was significantly higher in the surgery group than in the radiotherapy group (p = 0.004), with similar results obtained for DFS (HR 2.59, 95% CI 1.56–4.31; HR 1.56, 95% CI 1.24–1.97 for the surgery and radiotherapy groups, respectively) and DSS (HR 2.96, 95% CI 0.73–11.95; HR 2.67, 95% CI 1.51–4.73 for the surgery and RT groups, respectively). Conclusions: Sarcopenia was a poor prognostic factor for HNC, regardless of the treatment modality. However, the adverse effects of sarcopenia on survival were more prominent in the surgery group than in the radiotherapy group. Sarcopenia assessment is required for appropriate treatment decision-making.

Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0259288 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 59288&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0259288

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0259288

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().