Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Jan 27, 2024; 16(1): 257-259
Published online Jan 27, 2024. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v16.i1.257
Sarcopenia in cirrhotic patients: Does frailty matter while waiting for a liver transplant?
Xing-Jie Li, Kang He
Xing-Jie Li, Division of Transplant Surgery, Mayo Clinic Arizona, Phoenix, AZ 85054, United States
Xing-Jie Li, Kang He, Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai 200127, China
Author contributions: Li XJ wrote the manuscript; He K designed the study and revised the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
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: Kang He, MD, Doctor, Department of Liver Surgery, Renji Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, No. 160 Pujian Road, Shanghai 200127, China. hekang929@163.com
Received: November 10, 2023
Peer-review started: November 10, 2023
First decision: December 4, 2023
Revised: December 7, 2023
Accepted: December 12, 2023
Article in press: December 12, 2023
Published online: January 27, 2024
Core Tip

Core Tip: Sarcopenia is an independent risk factor for mortality in cirrhotic patients waiting for a liver transplant. It is important to recognize sarcopenia at pre-transplant evaluation, provide supportive management and optimize patient conditions prior to the transplant. Also, the future organ allocation policymakers should take into account that cirrhotic patients with sarcopenia carry a potentially higher mortality than reflected by the current model for end-stage liver disease-Na model and therefore in a more urgent need of a liver transplant.