Publication

Skeletal muscle mass correlates with increased toxicity during neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy in locally advanced esophageal cancer: A SAKK 75/08 substudy

Journal Paper/Review - Sep 11, 2019

Units
PubMed
Doi

Citation
Panje C, Plasswilm L, Ruhstaller T, Gerard M, Hawle H, Schacher S, Henke G, Meier U, Garcia Schüler H, Herrmann E, Baracos V, Hayoz S, Höng L, Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK). Skeletal muscle mass correlates with increased toxicity during neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy in locally advanced esophageal cancer: A SAKK 75/08 substudy. Radiat Oncol 2019; 14:166.
Type
Journal Paper/Review (English)
Journal
Radiat Oncol 2019; 14
Publication Date
Sep 11, 2019
Issn Electronic
1748-717X
Pages
166
Brief description/objective

BACKGROUND
Sarcopenia, the critical depletion of skeletal muscle mass, is an independent prognostic factor in several tumor entities for treatment-related toxicity and survival. In esophageal cancer, there have been conflicting results regarding the value of sarcopenia as prognostic factor, which may be attributed to the heterogeneous patient populations and the retrospective nature of previous studies. The aim of our study was therefore to determine the impact of sarcopenia on prospectively collected specific outcomes in a subgroup of patients treated within the phase III study SAKK 75/08 with trimodality therapy (induction chemotherapy, radiochemotherapy and surgery) for locally advanced esophageal cancer.

METHODS
Sarcopenia was assessed by skeletal muscle index at the 3rd lumbar vertebra (L3) in cross-sectional computed tomography scans before induction chemotherapy, before radiochemotherapy and after neoadjuvant therapy in a subgroup of 61 patients from four centers in Switzerland. Sarcopenia was determined by previously established cut-off values (Martin et al., PMID: 23530101) and correlated with prospectively collected outcomes including treatment-related toxicity, postoperative morbidity, treatment feasibility and survival.

RESULTS
Using the published cut-off values, the prevalence of sarcopenia increased from 29.5% before treatment to 63.9% during neoadjuvant therapy (p < 0.001). Feasibility of neoadjuvant therapy and surgery was not different in initially sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic patients. We observed in sarcopenic patients significantly increased grade ≥ 3 toxicities during chemoradiation (83.3% vs 52.4%, p = 0.04) and a non-significant trend towards increased postoperative complications (66.7% vs 42.9%, p = 0.16). No difference in survival according to sarcopenia could be observed in this small study population.

CONCLUSIONS
Trimodality therapy in locally advanced esophageal cancer is feasible in selected patients with sarcopenia. Neoadjuvant chemoradiation increased the percentage of sarcopenia. Sarcopenic patients are at higher risk for increased toxicity during neoadjuvant radiochemotherapy and showed a non-significant trend to more postoperative morbidity.