Feasibility of using head and neck CT imaging to assess skeletal muscle mass in head and neck cancer patients

Abstract

Objectives Patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) have a higher risk of malnutrition and sarcopenia, which is associated with adverse clinical outcome. As abdominal CT-imaging is often used to detect sarcopenia, such scans are rarely available in HNC patients, possibly explaining why no studies investigate the effect of sarcopenia in this population. We correlated skeletal muscle mass assessed on head and neck CT-scans with abdominal CT-imaging. Methods Head and neck, and abdominal CT-scans of trauma (n = 51) and HNC-patients (n = 52) were retrospectively analyzed. On the head and neck CT-scans, the paravertebral and sternocleidomastoid muscles were delineated. On the abdominal CT-scans, all muscles were delineated. Cross-sectional area (CSA) of the muscles at the level of the C3 vertebra was compared to CSA at the L3 level using linear regression. A multivariate linear regression model was established. Results HNC-patients had significantly lower muscle CSA than trauma patients (37.9 vs. 45.1 cm2, p