{"doi":"10.18632/oncotarget.27594","title":"Muscle mass, not radiodensity, predicts physical function in cancer patients with or without cachexia","abstract":"// Lindsey J. Anderson 1 , Nicole Chong 1 , Dorota Migula 1 , Adam Sauer 1 , Michelle Garrison 3 , Peter Wu 2 , 4 , Atreya Dash 5 , 6 and Jose M. Garcia 1 , 7 1 Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, Washington, USA 2 Department of Surgery, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, Washington, USA 3 Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA 4 Department of Surgery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA 5 Department of Urology, Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, Washington, USA 6 Department of Urology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA 7 Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine-Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA Correspondence to: Jose M. Garcia, email: jose.garcia@va.gov Keywords: cancer cachexia; physical function; computed tomography; muscle radiodensity Received: February 24, 2020     Accepted: April 27, 2020     Published: May 19, 2020 ABSTRACT Background: There is a need to better understand the relationship between functional impairment and muscle mass in cancer cachexia. This study aimed to establish the relationship between computed tomography (CT)-derived muscle cross-sectional area (CSA), radiodensity, and skeletal muscle index (SMI) and dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) parameters with functional performance in cancer patients. Materials and Methods: Handgrip strength, stair climb power (SCP), one-repetition maximum (1RM) strength, and body composition (CT and DXA) were compared across cancer patients with cachexia (CAC; N = 28), without cachexia (CNC; N = 28), and non-cancer patients (CON; N = 19). Multivariate regression was performed to find predictors of function. Results: CAC had lower CT muscle CSA and SMI and lower DXA appendicular lean mass (ALM) than CNC or CON ( p ≤ 0.011). Muscle radiodensity was not different across groups despite larger proportion of low CT SMI in CAC, and CAC performed worse in SCP than CON ( p = 0.018). In cancer patients, DXA ALM and CT muscle CSA each predicted physical function ( p ≤ 0.05); muscle radiodensity did not, and DXA ALM explained more variability in SCP and 1RM than CT muscle CSA. Conclusions: Stair climb power was reduced in cancer cachexia; muscle radiodensity was not. Muscle mass by CT or DXA, but not radiodensity, predicted functional performance in cancer patients.","journal":"Oncotarget","year":2020,"id":84058,"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":10,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9601,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":431885,"name":"Nicole Chong","orcid":"0000-0002-9144-8884","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":433065,"name":"Dorota Migula","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":431886,"name":"Adam Sauer","orcid":"0000-0002-7639-9842","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":430898,"name":"Michelle M. Garrison","orcid":"0000-0002-6603-7696","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":431887,"name":"Peter Wu","orcid":"0000-0001-6503-3936","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":431888,"name":"Atreya Dash","orcid":"0000-0002-2634-5539","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":363495,"name":"José M. Garcia","orcid":"0000-0002-4245-1753","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":431884,"name":"Lindsey Anderson","orcid":"0000-0003-3810-2427","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":45,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:54:50.827092Z","pmid":"32499874","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":[]}