Imaging-based assessment of sarcopenia in liver transplant candidates: A systematic review

Table 4 Association between sarcopenia and intensive care unit/hospital length of stay in end-stage liver disease: Summary of effect measures and findings from studies assessing the relationship between sarcopenia and the duration of intensive care unit and hospital stays in liver transplant candidates

Ref.	Prevalence of sarcopenia	Association with length of ICU and hospital stays	Effect measure	Result
Bot et al[28], 2023		SMI: Significant with hospital stay; not significant with ICU stay. MA: Not significant	OR	Length of ICU stay > 3 days was not significantly associated with SMI (OR = 1.44; 95%CI: 0.48-4.36; P = 0.518) or MA (OR = 0.45; 95%CI: 0.15-1.27; P = 0.155). Total hospital stays > 3 weeks was significantly associated with higher SMI (OR = 0.21; 95%CI: 0.06-0.73; P = 0.014), but not with MA (OR = 0.41; 95%CI: 0.13-1.27; P = 0.122)
Hey et al[36], 2022	Male 28%, female 15%	Upper limb lean mass: Significant (male), not significant (female); sarcopenia (APLM cutoffs): Not significant	τb	Upper limb lean mass was inversely associated with ICU stay (τb = -0.090, P = 0.015) and hospital stay (τb = -0.10, P = 0.0078). Sarcopenia based on gender-specific cutoffs showed no significant association with length of ICU or hospital stays

SMI: Skeletal muscle index; ICU: Intensive care unit; MA: Muscle attenuation; OR: Odds ratio; APLM: Appendicular lean mass index; τb: Tau-b de Kendall.