Myosteatosis as a Prognostic Marker for Postoperative Mortality in Adult Patients Undergoing Surgery in General—A Systematic Review

Onno Emanuel den Os*, Rosalie Nielen, Elham Bidar

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal(Systematic) Review article peer-review

Abstract

Background: Assessing frailty is important in treating surgical patients to predict peri- and postoperative events like complications or mortality. The current standard is not optimal; therefore, new prognostic markers are being evaluated to enrich the current frailty assessment. One of these new markers is fat degeneration of the psoas muscle (myosteatosis). This can be assessed by measuring the psoas muscle density (PMD) with computed tomography (CT). The aim of this review is to investigate PMD, and, thus, myosteatosis, as a prognostic marker for postoperative mortality in adult patients undergoing general surgery. Methods: An electronic search was performed in PubMed to identify relevant studies associating PMD with postoperative mortality. The looked-upon period for mortality to occur did not matter for this review. The looked-upon outcome measure for this review was the hazard ratio. Results: From 659 potential articles from PubMed, 12 were included, for a total of 4834 participants. Articles were excluded when not focused on PMD, if the type of intervention was not specified, and when imaging other than with CT on the level of the third vertebra was performed. The included articles were assessed for bias with the Newcastle–Ottawa Scale (NOS). PMD was, after multivariable analyses, identified as an independent significant prognostic marker for several surgical cardiovascular interventions when we looked at the 5-year mortality rate and for fenestrated branched endovascular aortic repair (F-BEVAR) a slight significant protective correlation between postoperative mortality and PMD (when divided by psoas muscle area (PMI)) when we looked at the 30-day and 3-year mortality. Also, PMD was identified as an independent significant prognostic marker for a variety of surgical gastrointestinal interventions when we looked at 30-day/90-day/1-year/3-year/5-year mortality. PMD was not identified as a significant prognostic marker in urologic surgery. Conclusion: Myosteatosis has the potential to be a valuable contribution to the current frailty assessment for patients undergoing cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, or urologic surgery. However, more research must be conducted to further strengthen the prognostic value of myosteatosis, with special attention to, e.g., gender- or age-specific interpretations of the results.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)647-664
Number of pages18
JournalSurgeries
Volume4
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2023

Keywords

  • frailty
  • myosteatosis
  • postoperative mortality
  • prognostic marker
  • psoas muscle density

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