The Prevalence of Sarcopenic Obesity in Postmenopausal Women with a History of Breast Cancer Depending on Adopted Methodology – A Case–Control Study

INTRODUCTION: Sarcopenic obesity (SO) is characterized as the cooccurrence of sarcopenia and obesity. It is associated with many adverse health consequences, also in oncological patients. The study aimed to assess the prevalence of SO in postmenopausal women with a history of breast cancer depending on adopted methodology. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The case–control study enrolled 103 women over the age of 50 with a history of breast cancer, including women who completed oncological treatment and had remained in remission for at least 5 years (group I, n=78) and women in whom the disease recurred (group II, n=25). The control group included women with no history of breast cancer (group III, n=73). RESULTS: In group II sarcopenia occurred significantly more commonly compared to both group I and the control group (for the skeletal muscle index (SMI) ≤29.20%: 13 (52%) in group II vs 16 (20.5%) in group I, p=0.004 and 3 (4.1%) in group III, p<0.001; for SMI ≤26.60%: 10 (40%) in group II vs 9 (11.5%) in group I, p=0.003 and 3 (4.1%) in group III, p<0.001; for SMI ≤33.87%: 17 (68%) in group II vs 21 (26.9%) in group I, p<0.001 and 5 (6.8%) in group III, p<0.001). Depending on the assessment criteria, SO was diagnosed in 0–11.5% of cases in group I, 0–40% of cases in group II and 0–4.1% in the control group. Intergroup differences were not statistically significant, irrespective of the adopted pair of diagnostic criteria. The highest detectability of SO was observed when SMI was combined with each of the diagnostic criteria for obesity used. DISCUSSION: SO diagnosis based on the percentage of fatty tissue mass in the body of >38% and SMI value were associated with a higher detection rate of SO in each study group, regardless of the adopted cut-off value. Similar results were obtained in each analyzed group when using the remaining diagnostic criteria for obesity and SMI value, regardless of the cut-off value.