{"doi":"10.1002/jcsm.12734","title":"Sarcopenia and preserved bone mineral density in paediatric survivors of high‐risk neuroblastoma with growth failure","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Survival from paediatric high-risk neuroblastoma (HR-NBL) has increased, but cis-retinoic acid (cis-RA), the cornerstone of HR-NBL therapy, can cause osteoporosis and premature physeal closure and is a potential threat to skeletal structure in HR-NBL survivors. Sarcopenia is associated with increased morbidity in survivors of paediatric malignancies. Low muscle mass may be associated with poor prognosis in HR-NBL patients but has not been studied in these survivors. The study objective was to assess bone density, body composition and muscle strength in HR-NBL survivors compared with controls. METHODS: This prospective cross-sectional study assessed areal bone mineral density (aBMD) of the whole body, lumbar spine, total hip, femoral neck, distal 1/3 and ultradistal radius and body composition (muscle and fat mass) using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and lower leg muscle strength using a dynamometer. Measures expressed as sex-specific standard deviation scores (Z-scores) included aBMD (adjusted for height Z-score), bone mineral apparent density (BMAD), leg lean mass (adjusted for leg length), whole-body fat mass index (FMI) and ankle dorsiflexion peak torque adjusted for leg length (strength-Z). Muscle-specific force was assessed as strength relative to leg lean mass. Outcomes were compared between HR-NBL survivors and controls using Student's t-test or Mann-Whitney U test. Linear regression models examined correlations between DXA and dynamometer outcomes. RESULTS: We enrolled 20 survivors of HR-NBL treated with cis-RA [13 male; mean age: 12.4 ± 1.6 years; median (range) age at therapy initiation: 2.6 (0.3-9.1) years] and 20 age-, sex- and race-matched controls. Height-Z was significantly lower in HR-NBL survivors compared with controls (-1.73 ± 1.38 vs. 0.34 ± 1.12, P < 0.001). Areal BMD-Z, BMAD-Z, FMI-Z, visceral adipose tissue and subcutaneous adipose tissue were not significantly different in HR-NBL survivors compared with controls. Compared with controls, HR-NBL survivors had lower leg lean mass-Z (-1.46 ± 1.35 vs. - 0.17 ± 0.84, P < 0.001) and strength-Z (-1.13 ± 0.86 vs. - 0.15 ± 0.71, P < 0.001). Muscle-specific force was lower in HR-NBL survivors compared with controls (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Bone mineral density and adiposity are not severely impacted in HR-NBL survivors with growth failure, but significant sarcopenia persists years after treatment. Future studies are needed to determine if sarcopenia improves with muscle-specific interventions in this population of cancer survivors.","journal":"Journal of Cachexia Sarcopenia and Muscle","year":2021,"id":175537,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":22,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9623,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":45189,"name":"Babette S. Zemel","orcid":"0000-0002-6164-7348","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":504387,"name":"Colin P. Hawkes","orcid":"0000-0001-6484-0445","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":464995,"name":"Jin Long","orcid":"0000-0002-6225-727X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":32955,"name":"Andrea Kelly","orcid":"0000-0003-1724-9868","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":417333,"name":"Mary B. Leonard","orcid":"0000-0002-8972-6582","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":415560,"name":"Diego Jaramillo","orcid":"0000-0002-9571-9776","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":310241,"name":"Sogol Mostoufi‐Moab","orcid":"0000-0002-8623-1138","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":540760,"name":"Michelle Guo","orcid":"0000-0003-4633-3997","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":46,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:47:15.431199Z","pmid":"34184837","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}