Sarcopenia Is Associated With Aggressive Clinicopathological Outcomes and Is a Poor Prognostic Indicator for Non-metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma

Background/Aim: We aimed to describe the impact of preoperative sarcopenia on the oncological outcome of non-metastatic renal cell carcinoma (RCC) after surgical treatment. Patients and Methods: Data on 299 Japanese patients with non-metastatic RCC who underwent radical treatment at Kanazawa University Hospital between October 2007 and December 2018 were extracted. Clinicopathological features and survival prognosis of patients stratified by the presence or absence of sarcopenia as indicated by the psoas muscle mass index (PMI) were retrospectively analyzed. PMI <516.8 and <235.1 mm2/m2 at the L3 level for male and female were defined as the cutoff values for sarcopenia, respectively. Results: Of 299 patients, 113 (37.8%) were classified as sarcopenic. The sarcopenia group showed a larger tumor size, worse pathological tumor stage and histological grade, and more frequent lymphovascular invasion than the non-sarcopenia group. According to Kaplan-Meier curves, sarcopenia was associated with a shorter overall survival (OS) and metastasis-free survival (p=0.0174 and 0.0306, respectively). Multivariate analysis identified sarcopenia as a significant and independent prognostic factor for poor OS (hazard ratio, 2.58; 95% confidence interval=1.09-6.08; p=0.030). Conclusion: Sarcopenia is a significant factor indicating worse pathological outcomes and poor survival prognosis in surgically treated non-metastatic RCC.

Automated summary

The impact of preoperative sarcopenia on the oncological outcome of surgically treated non-metastatic RCC was investigated in this study. The presence of sarcopenia was associated with larger tumor size, worse pathological tumor stage and grade, and more frequent lymphovascular invasion. Sarcopenia was found to be a significant factor indicating poor survival prognosis in patients with non-metastatic RCC treated surgically.