Low handgrip strength is related to elevated echogenicity in patients with chronic kidney disease: A pilot, cross-sectional and exploratory study

Objectives Evaluate associations between triceps braqui muscle ultrasound measures (TB US) and handgrip strength (HGS), and the sensibility of TB US for low HGS in non-dialysis-dependent chronic kidney disease (nd-CKD) patients. Participants and methods This pilot, cross-sectional, and exploratory study evaluated TB cross-sectional images from A-mode US and processed by FIJI-Image J to obtain muscle thickness (MT), echogenicity (EI), cross-sectional area (CSA), pennation angle (PA), and fascicle length (Lf) associating them with absolute HGS by simple and, multiple linear regression. The HGS was normalized to body mass index (BMI) and separated into low HGS (HGS/BMI≤10p according to sex and age) and adequate HGS (HGS/BMI>10p) groups. The body composition was from multifrequency bioimpedance. ROC analysis verified the TB US diagnostic accuracy to low HGS. Results Were included 42 (21M/21F) adults with 65.5 (60–70) y median age, 47.22% in 3b CKD stage. The low HGS group (45.23%) showed a higher fat mass (FM), TB muscle medium head's PA, and EI than adequate HGS (p<0.05). In crude model, a pixels increase in EI was associated with a 0.452kgf HGS reduction (p=0.019); adjusted for sex, age, and FM, a one-unit increase in EI was associated with a 0.510kgf HGS reduction (p=0.011). The EI also showed moderate diagnostic accuracy (AUC=0.730; CI 95%=0.589; 0.919) to low HGS and a sensitivity of 86.9% (cutoff≥13.52 pixels). Conclusion In nd-CKD patients, of all measurements from US, the EI was the most associated with HGS, and the only one sensitive to low HGS diagnosis.