Bone Abstracts

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to characterize the extent of sarcopenia among orthopaedic surgery patients.

Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study identified 222 patients immediately after or before an orthopaedic surgery including elective total hip and knee arthroplasty and hip fracture surgery at a single institution. 364 patients from an outpatient department who did not have an orthopaedic surgery were also examined as a control group. We checked whole-body dual energy X-ray absorptiometry to analyze body composition. Sarcopenia was classified into class I defined relative skeletal muscle mass loss within 1–2 S.D. of the gender-specific mean for healthy young adults and class II below 2 S.D.

Results: The prevalence of class II sarcopenia in patients undergoing orthopaedic surgery was 25.7% by height-adjusted definition and 44.1% by weight-adjusted definition. The prevalence in patients from outpatient department was 6 and 33.2% respectively which was significantly smaller than surgery group (P<0.0001 and P=0.011). The highest rates of sarcopenia with height-adjusted definition were seen in patients who were diagnosed as femur neck fracture. In multivariate analysis, female sex, older age, and lower BMI were associated with the presence of class II sarcopenia adjusted by height (OR 27.588, P<0.0001; OR 1.035, P=0.024; and OR 0.542, P<0.0001 respectively).

Conclusion: Present study showed a higher prevalence of sarcopenia in individuals undergoing orthopaedic surgeries.