SARC-F and other screening tests for sarcopenia

Abstract

SARC-F and other screening tests for sarcopenia G€ ulistan Bahat a , Tug ˘ba Erdog ˘an a , and Birkan I ˙lhan bPurpose of review Sarcopenia screening tools can enable clinicians to select individuals for more demanding evaluations, and hence, may facilitate its timely diagnosis and management. The most common recommended screening test is SARC-F, whereas many others are proposed. We aimed to summarize the recent studies and evidence performed on SARC-F and other sarcopenia screening tools. Recent findingsMeta-analysis studies reported that despite having moderate-high specificity, SARC-F has low-moderate sensitivity to detect sarcopenia, which would cause a significant number of individuals having sarcopenia to be unrecognized. Several recent studies aimed to increase sensitivity and utility of SARC-F as a screening tool by i.e., application of lower cut-offs, adding extra-items, and combining with other screening tests. Some of these approaches increased its screening efficacy significantly. In line with its previous studies, SARC-F showed success to predict adverse outcomes in the latest studies as well. Recently, it has also been suggested as a reasonable screening test for frailty. In addition to the long-standing screening tests i.e., anthropometric measures, Ishii Test and Mini Sarcopenia Risk Assessment (MSRA) Questionnaire; new tests, i.e., Taiwan Risk Score for Sarcopenia, Sarcopenia Scoring Assessment Model (SarSA-Mod) and re-purposed tests, i.e., SARQoL questionnaire and fracture risk assessment tool have been investigated as potential screening tests for sarcopenia. Some of these tests performed as well as or superior to standard SARC-F.

Establishment and validation of a prediction model for older people with sarcopenia

“…Therefore, the prevalence of sarcopenia in this study was higher than that in the previous study. From another perspective, they are signi cantly lower than the prevalence in our study, which may be due to the fact that some of the available methods and instruments for assessing muscle mass, strength, and physical function are limited by feasibility, complexity, and the time and cost required for examination, resulting in underdiagnosis of sarcopenia in the older people 13,14,22 . The identi cation, assessment, and early intervention of sarcopenia will become particularly important in preventing disability and other adverse health outcomes in the near future.…”

Deep Learning-Based Muscle Segmentation and Quantification of Full-Leg Plain Radiograph for Sarcopenia Screening in Patients Undergoing Total Knee Arthroplasty

“…To our knowledge, among all reported sarcopenia screening models, ours showed the highest performance (AUC 0.988, 95% CI 0.986-0.989) [25,33,51,52]. We have developed a pipeline involving both deep-learning-and machine-learning-based models, to take both radiographic images and patient baseline characteristics into consideration (which can be easily obtained in the preoperative clinical setting).…”

“…The EWGSOP2 and Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) recommended the SARC-F questionnaire as a screening tool in primary healthcare settings [10,24]. However, several studies have reported low-to-moderate sensitivity of this tool to detect sarcopenia, such that a substantial number of potential patients likely go unrecognised [25]. There have been numerous efforts to boost its sensitivity for screening purposes by lowering the cutoffs, adding extra items and combining it with other examinations, but there is as yet no consensus regarding the best tool for screening sarcopenia [26].…”

Impact of Sarcopenia and Bone Mineral Density on Implant Failure after Dorsal Instrumentation in Patients with Osteoporotic Vertebral Fractures

“…Sarcopenia is now considered severe when combined with impaired physical performance, low muscle strength, and declines in overall mass/quality of muscle [5]. Sarcopenia is clinically detectable through the patient history, pertinent questionnaires (e.g., SARC-F), and standardized and targeted examination (e.g., grip strength, gait speed) [8][9][10]. Although not regularly available to primary caregivers, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) are considered gold standard methods for the noninvasive quantification of muscle mass [11].…”