ArticleThe journal of nutrition, health & aging
Muscle Area and Density Assessed by Abdominal Computed Tomography in Healthy Adults: Effect of Normal Aging and Derivation of Reference Values.
Article in The journal of nutrition, health & aging. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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13 citing papers in PubMed, 20 citations in OpenAlex.
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- Nationwide organ volume distributions and cross-sectional age-associated differences in abdominal CT from Japan.Japanese journal of radiology · 2026Article
- Article
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- Association of spinopelvic mobility and osteosarcopenia with total hip arthroplasty outcomes.Journal of experimental orthopaedics · 2025Article
- Body Composition and Progression of Biopsy-Proven Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Patients With Obesity.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2024Article
- Relative muscle indices and healthy reference values for sarcopenia assessment using T10 through L5 computed tomography skeletal muscle area.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Levels of Sex Hormones and Abdominal Muscle Composition in Men from The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis.Scientific reports · 2024Observational
- Postictal vertebral fractures: Incidence, risk factors, and clinical outcomes. A systematic review.Brain & spine · 2024Article
- Does computed tomography-derived volumometry and densitometry of psoas muscle really correlate with complications in rectal cancer patients after elective surgery?Journal of clinical imaging science · 2024Article
- Age and gender differences in erector spinae area and their role in sarcopenia evaluation in a Chinese population.The journal of nutrition, health & aging · 2024Article
- Update on Lean Body Mass Diagnostic Assessment in Critical Illness.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Review
- Cutoff Value of Psoas Muscle Area as Reduced Muscle Mass and Its Association with Acute Pancreatitis in China.International journal of general medicine · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundA growing body of evidence has demonstrated the prognostic value of skeletal muscle area and quality measured by computed tomography (CT) as biomarkers of sarcopenia and frailty. However, there exists little data in normal healthy subjects to inform reference values and determine the effects of advancing age and sex on CT muscle parameters.
methodsAbdominal CT images of patients (20-80 years of age) presenting to the emergency department with benign abdominal symptoms and no significant medical comorbidities were retrospectively collected from 2014 to 2017. Psoas and abdominal wall muscle area (PMA, WMA) and density (PMD, WMD) at the level of the L4 vertebrae were measured with the CoreSlicer.com web app. The normal reference range was computed by non-parameteric 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles stratified by sex and restricted by age to the younger subgroup (20-39 years of age).
resultsThe cohort consisted of 390 otherwise healthy patients (162 males, 228 females). The lower reference range for PMA was <22.0 cm2 in males and <11.1 cm2 in females, and for WMA was <112.2 cm2 in males and <75.6 cm2 in females. There was a graded decline observed in PMA and WMA among older compared to younger adults (especially ≥60 years of age) (P<0.001) and among females compared to males (P<0.001). There was also a graded decline observed in PMD and WMD among older compared to younger adults (P<0.001), irrespective of sex.
conclusionThis study has defined the normal reference values and age-associated down-trend for CT muscle parameters at L4 in a healthy population using an accessible web-based software, which help contextualize and interpret these imaging biomarkers of sarcopenia in clinical care.
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