Clinical characteristics and mortality risk of sarcopenia in interstitial lung disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Lijuan Zhou, Xuan Wang, Weiwei Yuan, Yahui Yang, Ting Lu, Lu Guo, Xing He

Abstract readSystematic Review

In one paragraph

Synthesis in Frontiers in medicine, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

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0citing papers in PubMed

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1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

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0 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

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5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Lijuan ZhouDepartment of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.

Xuan WangDepartment of Nursing, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.

Weiwei YuanSchool of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.

Yahui YangSchool of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.

Ting LuDepartment of Nursing, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.

Lu GuoDepartment of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.

Xing HeDepartment of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Objective: Sarcopenia, prevalent in interstitial lung disease (ILD), increases the risk of poor outcomes. This study aimed to define the clinical characteristics of ILD patients with sarcopenia (ILD-S) and quantify sarcopenia's impact on mortality. Methods: We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, Web of Science, and Scopus for English studies up to 1 September 2026 reporting clinical variables (mean ± SD) in ILD vs. ILD-S groups and adjusted hazard ratios with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for mortality risk. Subgroup analyses were stratified by sarcopenia diagnostic criteria, ILD subtype, and survival time. Heterogeneity was assessed using Cochran's Q and I Results: Fourteen studies comprising 1,546 participants (628 with ILD-S) were included. Compared with ILD patients without sarcopenia, those with ILD-S were significantly older (WMD = 3.03, 95% CI: 2.12-3.93), had higher Gender-Age-Physiology (GAP) scores (WMD = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.15 to 0.71), and a higher FEV₁/FVC ratio (WMD = 1.97, 95% CI: 0.21 to 3.73, Conclusion: Patients with ILD-S exhibit a distinctive profile characterized by older age, higher GAP scores, poorer pulmonary function, lower BMI, reduced muscle strength and mass, and significantly elevated mortality. Systematic recognition of these clinical features may facilitate early identification of ILD-S and inform the development of targeted interventions to improve patient outcomes. Systematic Review Registration: https://inplasy.com/, INPLASY202570030.

Indexed as

associated factorinterstitial lung diseasemeta-analysismortalitysarcopenia

Identifiers

PMID42898471

DOI10.3389/fmed.2026.1955396

PMCPMC13677835

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.