ArticleThorax2023
CT pectoralis muscle area is associated with DXA lean mass and correlates with emphysema progression in a tobacco-exposed cohort.
Article in Thorax, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Comparison of chest CT-derived muscle mass and body mass index in assessing disease severity and outcomes in non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis.BMC pulmonary medicine · 2026Article
- Prognostic Value of Chest CT-Derived Pectoralis Muscle Metrics for In-Hospital Mortality and Invasive Mechanical Ventilation in AECOPD.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2026Article
- Glycemic variability and muscle loss in elderly type 2 diabetes: insights from continuous glucose monitoring and chest CT in 303 patients.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Diagnostic Value of Bilateral Pectoralis Major Total Cross-Sectional Area in Patients with AECOPD Complicated by Malnutrition.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2026Article
- The pectoralis major index: a novel computed tomography biomarker for low thoracic muscle mass and eastern cooperative oncology group performance status in lung cancer patients.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Pectoral muscle area derived from chest computed tomography to identify quadriceps muscle weakness in COPD.ERJ open research · 2025Article
- Research progress on evaluation methods for skeletal muscle mass assessment in sarcopenia (Review).Oncology letters · 2025Review
- Medical nutrition therapy in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: A narrative review.Nutrition in clinical practice : official publication of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition · 2025Review
- Evaluation of a Computed Tomography-based Technique for Predicting Atrial Fibrillation Recurrence Following Ablation Using an Adjusted Skeletal Muscle Index.Reviews in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Article
- Quantitative CT evaluation of extrapulmonary lesions in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: a narrative review.Journal of thoracic disease · 2025Review
- Effect of Common Medications on Longitudinal Pectoralis Muscle Area in Smokers.Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (Miami, Fla.) · 2025Article
- The Cross-Sectional Area of Erector Spinae Muscles Obtained from Chest CT Is an Independent Predictor of Death in COPD.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2025Article
- Identification of key genes associated with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and sarcopenia by bioinformatics analysis.PloS one · 2025Article
- Unveiling the Knowledge Frontier: A Scientometric Analysis of COPD with Sarcopenia.International journal of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease · 2024Article
- Cigarette smoking and disproportionate changes of thoracic skeletal muscles in low-dose chest computed tomography.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Incident low muscle mass is associated with greater lung disease and lower circulating leptin in a tobacco-exposed longitudinal cohort.Respiratory research · 2023Article
- The role of diet and nutrition in the management of COPD.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2023Review
- Associations Between Muscle Weakness and Clinical Outcomes in Current and Former Smokers.Chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (Miami, Fla.) · 2023Article
- Association between appendicular lean mass and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: epidemiological cross-sectional study and bidirectional Mendelian randomization analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- Increased chest CT derived bone and muscle measures capture markers of improved morbidity and mortality in COPD.Respiratory research · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
introductionMuscle loss is an important extrapulmonary manifestation of COPD. Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) is the method of choice for body composition measurement but is not widely used for muscle mass evaluation. The pectoralis muscle area (PMA) is quantifiable by CT and predicts cross-sectional COPD-related morbidity. There are no studies that compare PMA with DXA measures or that evaluate longitudinal relationships between PMA and lung disease progression.
methodsParticipants from our longitudinal tobacco-exposed cohort had baseline and 6-year chest CT (n=259) and DXA (n=164) data. Emphysema was quantified by CT density histogram parenchymal scoring using the 15th percentile technique. Fat-free mass index (FFMI) and appendicular skeletal mass index (ASMI) were calculated from DXA measurements. Linear regression model relationships were reported using standardised coefficient (β) with 95% CI.
resultsPMA was more strongly associated with DXA measures than with body mass index (BMI) in both cross-sectional (FFMI: β=0.76 (95% CI 0.65 to 0.86), p<0.001; ASMI: β=0.76 (95% CI 0.66 to 0.86), p<0.001; BMI: β=0.36 (95% CI 0.25 to 0.47), p<0.001) and longitudinal (ΔFFMI: β=0.43 (95% CI 0.28 to 0.57), p<0.001; ΔASMI: β=0.42 (95% CI 0.27 to 0.57), p<0.001; ΔBMI: β=0.34 (95% CI 0.22 to 0.46), p<0.001) models. Six-year change in PMA was associated with 6-year change in emphysema (β=0.39 (95% CI 0.23 to 0.56), p<0.001) but not with 6-year change in airflow obstruction.
conclusionsPMA is an accessible measure of muscle mass and may serve as a useful clinical surrogate for assessing skeletal muscle loss in smokers. Decreased PMA correlated with emphysema progression but not lung function decline, suggesting a difference in the pathophysiology driving emphysema, airflow obstruction and comorbidity risk.
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