Objectives: To evaluate the sarcopenic obesity status of Chinese breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, and with stage I-III primary breast cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in outpatient or inpatient departments at three hospitals in Beijing from 2016.6-2017.2 were selected using a convenience sampling method. Standard tools were used to measure the physical condition of breast cancer patients. Body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and body fat percentage (% BF) were used to evaluate the obesity of patients. Appendicular skeletal muscle mass index (ASMI) and hand grip strength (HGS) were used to evaluate the muscle loss. Combined obesity and muscle loss related indicators were used to determine the sarcopenic obesity. The Kappa consistency test was used to evaluate the consistency of obesity, muscle loss and the sarcopenic obesity.
Results: A total of 142(41.6%) patients with BMI >24kg/m2, 50(14.7%) patients with BMI≥28kg/m2, 169 (49.3%) patients with WC≥85cm. The simple Kappa coefficients are 0.462 and 0.441. A total of 235(67.7%) patients were obese among 347 patients. 74 (21.4%) breast cancer patients were in the group of ASMI < 5.7 kg/m2, and 52 people (15.0%) with HGS < 18kg. The Kappa value of the consistency test was 0.171. Reduce muscle mass or muscle strength combined with obesity to form two sarcopenic obesity criteria. Thera were 29 (8.4%) who met sarcopenic obesity (criterion 1) and 34 (9.8%) who met sarcopenic obesity (criterion 2). The Kappa test was used to test the consistency between the two criteria and the Kappa coefficient was 0.184.
Conclusions: Breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy had nutritional problems with obesity (67.7%), reduced muscle mass (21.4%) and decreased muscle strength (15.0%) and a certain percentage of breast cancer patients had sarcopenic obesity.
