Wan LH, Mao BJ, Wang B. Relationship between skeletal muscle mass and prognosis in patients with liver cancer receiving targeted therapy: A meta-analysis. World J Clin Oncol 2025; 16(5): 102611 [DOI: 10.5306/wjco.v16.i5.102611]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Bin Wang, Department of Oncology, The Seventh People’s Hospital of Chongqing, Affiliated Central Hospital of Chongqing University of Technology, No. 1 Lijiatuo Industry Federation Village, Banan District, Chongqing 400054, China. wangjianlinbin@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Oncology
Article-Type of This Article
Meta-Analysis
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (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: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Oncol. May 24, 2025; 16(5): 102611 Published online May 24, 2025. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v16.i5.102611
Relationship between skeletal muscle mass and prognosis in patients with liver cancer receiving targeted therapy: A meta-analysis
Ling-Hong Wan, Bi-Jing Mao, Bin Wang
Ling-Hong Wan, Department of Gastroenterology, Daping Hospital, Army Medical University, Third Military Medical University, Chongqing 400042, China
Bi-Jing Mao, Department of Oncology, The Third Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical University, Chongqing 401120, China
Bin Wang, Department of Oncology, The Seventh People’s Hospital of Chongqing, Affiliated Central Hospital of Chongqing University of Technology, Chongqing 400054, China
Co-corresponding authors: Bi-Jing Mao and Bin Wang.
Author contributions: Wan LH, Mao BJ, and Wang B edited and reviewed the manuscript, and approved the final article; Mao BJ and Wang B contributed equally as co-corresponding authors.
Supported by Chongqing Young and Middle-aged Medical High-end Talents, No. YXGD202405; Chongqing District and County Head Goose Talents, Chongqing Science and Technology and Health Joint Scientific Research Project on Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. 2024ZYYB036; and Chongqing Banan District Science and Technology and Health Joint Scientific Research Project on Traditional Chinese Medicine, No. BNWJ202300112.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
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: Bin Wang, Department of Oncology, The Seventh People’s Hospital of Chongqing, Affiliated Central Hospital of Chongqing University of Technology, No. 1 Lijiatuo Industry Federation Village, Banan District, Chongqing 400054, China. wangjianlinbin@163.com
Received: October 24, 2024 Revised: February 1, 2025 Accepted: April 1, 2025 Published online: May 24, 2025 Processing time: 207 Days and 19.9 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Many studies have found that sarcopenia is related to the survival of patients with liver cancer, which may lead to worse prognosis.
AIM
To investigate the relationship between skeletal muscle mass and prognosis in patients with liver cancer receiving targeted therapy by meta-analysis.
METHODS
PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science were searched for clinical studies on the relationship between skeletal muscle index (SMI) and the prognosis of patients with liver cancer receiving targeted therapy from inception to March 1, 2022. Meta-analysis and sensitivity analysis of the data were performed using Stata 16.0 software.
RESULTS
A total of 6877 studies were searched, and finally 12 articles with 1715 cases were included. Meta-analysis result of 8 articles showed that compared with non-low SMI group, the overall survival (OS) of patients with liver cancer in the low SMI group was significantly shorter (hazard ratio = 1.60, 95% confidence interval: 1.44-1.77, P = 0.000). Meta-analysis result of 4 articles showed that, compared with low SMI group, patients in the non-low SMI group had longer OS (hazard ratio = 0.59, 95% confidence interval: 0.38-0.91, P = 0.018).
CONCLUSION
Skeletal muscle mass is positively correlated with OS in patients with liver cancer receiving targeted therapy.
Core Tip: In recent years, many studies have found that sarcopenia is related to the survival of patients with liver cancer, which may lead to worse prognosis. However, some studies have demonstrated that the presence or absence of sarcopenia has no significant effect on the prognosis of patients with liver cancer. Therefore, this study intends to evaluate the value of sarcopenia in evaluating the prognosis of patients with liver cancer receiving targeted therapy through meta-analysis, so as to guide the nutritional support therapy for the patients in clinical practice.
