The impact of sarcopenia on overall survival in patients with pan-RAS wild-type colorectal liver metastasis receiving hepatectomy

Sarcopenia has been associated with conventional chemotherapy-related toxicity, postoperative complications and poor overall survival in patients with genotype-unselected metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). This study aimed to evaluate the prognostic implications of sarcopenia and its change after perioperative cetuximab plus doublet chemotherapy and hepatectomy in patients with RAS wild-type colorectal liver metastasis (CRLM). Patients with CRLM from 2007 to 2018 in Chang Gung Research Database were retrospectively analyzed. Baseline characteristics as well as skeletal muscle index (SMI) at baseline and dynamic changes after interventions were collected. A multivariate Cox proportional hazard model was used to evaluate the effect of each parameter on overall survival (OS), and the Kaplan–Meier method was used to establish survival curves. A two-sided p value < 0.05 was considered statistically significance. Of 214 RAS wild-type mCRC patients who received both cetuximab and doublet chemotherapy, 77 who received upfront or subsequent hepatectomy were included in this study. The median follow-up time was 2.3 years. The rate of sarcopenia was higher in the patients who received neoadjuvant cetuximab-containing regimens than in those who received upfront hepatectomy (95% versus 63%, p = 0.001). Increased SMI after perioperative systemic therapy remained independently associated with better OS in multivariate analysis [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.27/10% increase, p = 0.013). The patients with sarcopenia had a trend of worse OS than those without sarcopenia (median OS: 4.5 versus 3.6 years, log-rank p = 0.282). Improvement in sarcopenia ([SMI after intervention − initial SMI]/initial SMI × 100%) is an important prognostic factor for OS. Future research is warranted to investigate direct interventions for sarcopenia and the impact on OS.