The following is a summary of “Impact of baseline body composition on prognostic outcomes in urological malignancies treated with immunotherapy: a pooled analysis of 10 retrospective studies,” published in the July 2024 issue of Oncology by Ma et al.
Numerous epidemiological investigations have examined the impact of body composition on the outcomes of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) in patients with urological malignancies (UM), yielding varied results.
Therefore, this study aims to clarify the influence of baseline body composition on the long-term prognosis of patients with UM treated with ICIs.
A comprehensive systematic search across PubMed, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar identified studies meeting inclusion criteria. The primary endpoints were OS and PFS.
The analysis included 10 articles involving 707 patients. The findings highlighted significant associations between several body composition parameters and poorer OS outcomes, including low psoas muscle index (PMI; HR: 3.88, P<0.001), low skeletal muscle index (SMI; HR: 1.63, P<0.001), sarcopenia (HR: 1.88, P<0.001), low visceral adipose index (VAI; HR: 1.38, P=0.018), and low subcutaneous adipose index (SAI; HR: 1.37, P=0.018). Additionally, the analysis revealed that low PMI (HR: 2.05, P=0.006), low SMI (HR: 1.89, P=0.002), sarcopenia (HR: 1.80, P<0.001), and low VAI (HR: 1.59, P=0.005) were significantly associated with inferior PFS. However, SAI did not exhibit a pronounced association with PFS in patients with UM treated with ICIs.
The study underscored a substantial relationship between baseline body composition parameters and diminished clinical efficacy in patients with UM undergoing ICI therapy. These findings emphasised the importance of considering body composition metrics as potential prognostic factors in the management and treatment planning for patients with UM receiving ICIs.
Source: bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12885-024-12579-x
