Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Apr 28, 2022; 14(4): 82-90
Published online Apr 28, 2022. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v14.i4.82
Decreased cross-sectional muscle area in male patients with clear cell renal cell carcinoma and peritumoral collateral vessels
Federico Greco, Bruno Beomonte Zobel, Carlo Augusto Mallio
Federico Greco, Unità Operativa Complessa Diagnostica per Immagini Territoriale Aziendale, Cittadella della Salute Azienda Sanitaria Locale di Lecce, Lecce 73100, Italy
Bruno Beomonte Zobel, Carlo Augusto Mallio, Unit of Diagnostic Imaging, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome 00128, Italy
Author contributions: Greco F and Mallio CA contributed equally to this work; Greco F and Mallio CA designed the research; Greco F and Mallio CA performed the research; Greco F and Mallio CA analyzed the data; Greco F, Beomonte Zobel B, and Mallio CA validated the research; Greco F and Mallio CA wrote the paper; Greco F, Beomonte Zobel B, and Mallio CA supervised the research.
Institutional review board statement: All the procedures were retrospective and agreed with the Declaration of Helsinki. CT images and data of ccRCC patients were retrieved from The Cancer Imaging Archive (TCIA). The TCIA project received approval of the Institutional Review Board. This subsequent retrospective analysis was on the publicly available, anonymized data and did not require further review due to previous protections implemented by TCIA.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: The data presented in this study are openly available in The Cancer Imaging Archive (https://wiki.cancerimagingarchive.net/display/Public/TCGA-KIRC, accessed on 1 November 2019).
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Federico Greco, MD, Doctor, Unità Operativa Complessa Diagnostica per Immagini Territoriale Aziendale, Cittadella della Salute Azienda Sanitaria Locale di Lecce, Piazza Filippo Bottazzi, Lecce 73100, Italy. federicogreco@outlook.com
Received: October 24, 2021
Peer-review started: October 24, 2021
First decision: December 10, 2021
Revised: December 15, 2021
Accepted: March 25, 2022
Article in press: March 25, 2022
Published online: April 28, 2022
Processing time: 182 Days and 21.3 Hours
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

Sarcopenia is the loss of skeletal muscle mass (SMM) and is part of cancer cachexia in which there is a decrease of adipose tissue and SM. Peritumoral collateral vessels adjacent to renal cell carcinoma (RCC) are indicative of locally advanced disease.

Research motivation

Metabolic systemic consequence related to a locally advanced disease might be linked to a decrease of SSM in clear cell RCC (ccRCC) patients with peritumoral collateral vessels, possibly providing clinically relevant information.

Research objectives

The aim of this study was to evaluate the amount of SMM in male ccRCC patients with and without peritumoral collateral vessels, in order to understand a possible relationship between sarcopenia and collateral vessels.

Research methods

In this study, we included a total of 124 male Caucasian patients divided into two groups: ccRCCa (n = 54) and ccRCCp (n = 70) groups, respectively, without and with collateral vessels. Computed tomography imaging-based approach was used for total abdominal muscle area (TAMA) measurements.

Research results

There was a statistically significant difference between the two groups for TAMA (P < 0.05).

Research conclusions

This study showed a reduction of TAMA in male ccRCC patients with peritumoral collateral vessels.

Research perspectives

Further studies, on larger sample size and with longitudinal data, will shed light on collateral vessels adjacent to RCC as a possible biomarker of cachexia and sarcopenia.