Background: Because the method of diagnosing sarcopenia is complex and is considered to be difficult to introduce into routine practice, the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People’s (EWGSOP) recommends use of the SARC-F questionnaire as a way to introduce assessment and treatment of sarcopenia into clinical practice ¹ . Only recently, some studies have focused their attention on the presence of sarcopenia in systemic sclerosis (SSc) and there is no data about the performance of SARC-F in this population.

Objectives: To test the diagnostic properties of the SARC-F questionnaire for sarcopenia screening in SSc patients.

Methods: Cross-sectional study, including 94 SSc patients assessed by clinical evaluation, laboratory and pulmonary function tests. Sarcopenia was evaluated using the EWGSOP diagnostic criteria updated in 2019 (EWGSOP2): dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, handgrip strength, and short physical performance battery (SPPB) ¹ . Participants also completed the SARC-F questionnaire. The questionnaires’ performances were evaluated through receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and standard measures of diagnostic accuracy were computed using the EWGSOP2 criteria as the gold standard for diagnosis of sarcopenia.

Results: Sarcopenia was identified in 15 (15,9%) SSc patients by the EWGSOP2 criteria. Area under the ROC curve of SARC-F screening for sarcopenia was 0.588 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.482, 0.688) ( figure 1 ). The results of sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratio (PLR) and negative likelihood ratio (NLR) with the EWGSOP2 criteria as the reference standard were 35.71 [95% CI, 12.76-64.86], 81.01 (95% CI, 70.62-88.97), 1.88 (95% CI, 0.81-4.35) and 0.79 (95% CI, 0.53-1.19), respectively. The optimal cut-off point of SARC-F in our sample was ≥ 4 (Youden index: 0.21), the same cut-off point recommended in the literature ^2,3 . Only 6 (40%) out of the 15 participants with sarcopenia were identified by the SARC-F questionnaire in our population. However, the SARC-F properly identified 4 out of 5 patients who had severe sarcopenia.

Conclusion: This is the first study to evaluate the performance of SARC-F questionnaire for sarcopenia screening in patients with SSc. Although it appropriately identifies severe cases of sarcopenia, the SARC-F alone may not be an adequate screening tool in high-risk populations, such as SSc, that may benefit from early intervention and treatment.

REFERENCES:

[1]Cruz-Jentoft AJ, Bahat G, Bauer J, et al. Sarcopenia: Revised European consensus on definition and diagnosis. Age Ageing. 2019;48(1):16-31.

[2]Malmstrom TK, Morley JE. SARC-F: A simple questionnaire to rapidly diagnose sarcopenia. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2013;14(8):531-532.

[3]Ida S, Kaneko R, Murata K. SARC-F for Screening of Sarcopenia Among Older Adults: A Meta-analysis of Screening Test Accuracy. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2018;19(8):685-689.

Disclosure of Interests: Vanessa Hax: None declared, Rafaela Santo: None declared, Leonardo Santos: None declared, Mirian Farinon: None declared, Marianne de Oliveira: None declared, Guilherme Levi Três: None declared, Andrese Aline Gasparin: None declared, M Bredemeier: None declared, Ricardo Xavier Consultant of: AbbVie, Pfizer, Novartis, Janssen, Eli Lilly, Roche, Rafael Mendonça da Silva Chakr: None declared