Impact of CT-Determined Sarcopenia and Body Composition on Survival Outcome in Patients with Advanced-Stage High-Grade Serous Ovarian Carcinoma

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the impact of sarcopenia and body composition on survival outcomes in Korean patients with advanced-stage high-grade serous ovarian carcinoma (HGSOC). We retrospectively identified patients diagnosed with and treated for International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage III-IV HGSOC. Skeletal muscle index (SMI) was measured using pre-treatment computed tomography scans at the third lumbar vertebra. Sarcopenia was defined as SMI <39.0 cm ²/m ². Patients’ clinicopathologic characteristics and survival outcomes were compared according to sarcopenia presence. For subgroup analysis, we also measured the total fat area from the same image. In total, 76 and 103 patients were assigned to the sarcopenia and control groups, respectively. Comorbidities, stage, serum CA-125 levels, and size of residual tumor after surgery were similar between both groups. After a median follow up of 42.7 months, both groups showed similar progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS). In subgroup analysis confined to the sarcopenia group, patients with high fat-to-muscle ratio (FMR; ≥2.1, n = 38) showed significantly worse OS than those with low FMR (<2.1, n = 38) (5-year survival rate, 44.7% vs. 80.0%; p = 0.046), whereas PFS was not different ( p = 0.365). Multivariate analyses identified high FMR as an independent poor prognostic factor for OS in this group (adjusted hazard ratio, 3.377; 95% confidence interval, 1.170–9.752; p = 0.024). In conclusion, sarcopenia did not influence recurrence rates and survival in Korean patients with advanced-stage HGSOC. However, among the patients with sarcopenia, high FMR was associated with decreased OS.