Based on CT at the third lumbar spine level, the skeletal muscle index and psoas muscle index can predict osteoporosis

BACKGROUND: With the increasing number of studies on osteoporosis and muscle adipose tissue, existing studies have shown that skeletal muscle tissue and adipose tissue are closely related to osteoporosis by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry (DXA) measurement. However, few studies have explored whether the skeletal muscle and adipose tissue index measured at the lumbar spine 3 (L3) level are closely related to bone mineral density (BMD) and can even predict osteoporosis. Therefore, this study aimed to prove whether skeletal muscle and adipose tissue index measured by computed tomography (CT) images based on a single layer are closely related to BMD. METHODS: A total of 180 participants were enrolled in this study to obtain skeletal muscle index (SMI), psoas muscle index (PMI), subcutaneous fat index (SFI), visceral fat index (VFI), and the visceral-to-subcutaneous ratio of the fat area (VSR) at L3 levels and divide them into osteoporotic and normal groups based on the T-score of DXA. Spearman rank correlation was used to analyze the correlation between SMI, PMI, SFI, VFI, VSR, and BMD. Similarly, spearman rank correlation was also used to analyze the correlation between SMI, PMI, SFI, VFI, VSR, and the fracture risk assessment tool (FRAX). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) was used to analyze the efficacy of SMI, PMI, SFI, VFI, and VSR in predicting osteoporosis. RESULTS: BMD of L1-4 was closely correlated with SMI, PMI, VFI and VSR (r = 0.199 p = 0.008, r = 0.422 p < 0.001, r = 0.253 p = 0.001, r = 0.310 p < 0.001). BMD of the femoral neck was only correlated with PMI and SFI (r = 0.268 p < 0.001, r = − 0.164 p-0.028). FRAX (major osteoporotic fracture) was only closely related to PMI (r = − 0.397 p < 0.001). FRAX (hip fracture) was closely related to SMI and PMI (r = − 0.183 p = 0.014, r = − 0.353 p < 0.001). Besides, FRAX (major osteoporotic fracture and hip fracture) did not correlate with VFI, SFI, and VSR. SMI and PMI were statistically significant, with the area under the curve (AUC) of 0.400 (95% confidence interval 0.312-0.488 p = 0.024) and 0.327 (95% confidence interval 0.244-0.410 p < 0.001), respectively. VFI, SFI, and VSR were not statistically significant in predicting osteoporosis. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrated that L3-based muscle index could assist clinicians in the diagnosis of osteoporosis to a certain extent, and PMI is superior to SMI in the diagnosis of osteoporosis. In addition, VFI, SFI, and VSR do not help clinicians to diagnose osteoporosis well.