Article Category: Review
Published Online: Feb 21, 2024
Page range: 1 - 8
Received: Nov 02, 2023
Accepted: Dec 04, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2024-0011
Keywords
© 2024 Mihaela Jurdana et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Background
Sarcopenic obesity is a relatively new term. It is a clinical condition characterized by sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass and function) and obesity (increase in fat mass) that mainly affects older adults. As the incidence of sarcopenia and obesity increases worldwide, sarcopenic obesity is becoming a greater problem also in cancer patients. In fact, sarcopenic obesity is associated with poorer treatment outcomes, longer hospital stays, physical disability, and shorter survival in several cancers. Oxidative stress, lipotoxicity, and systemic inflammation, as well as altered expression of skeletal muscle anti-inflammatory myokines in sarcopenic obesity, are also associated with carcinogenesis.
Conclusions
Reported prevalence of sarcopenic obesity in cancer varies because of heterogeneity in definitions and variability in diagnostic criteria used to estimate the prevalence of sarcopenia and obesity. Therefore, the aim of this review is to describe the definitions, prevalence, and diagnostic criteria as well as the mechanisms that cancer has in common with sarcopenic obesity.