Sarcopenia is associated with adverse outcomes in elderly persons, including functional disability, falls, and even death. Therefore, older adults should be routinely screened for sarcopenia. Due to the unsatisfactory sensitivity of the SARC-F questionnaire, 4 modified versions have been elaborated: SARC-CalF (calf measurement), SARC-F+EBM (BMI), SARC-F+AC (arm circumference), and SARC-CalF+AC (calf measurement + arm circumference). Polish researchers from the Department of Palliative Medicine at Poznan University of Medical Sciences conducted a study to compare the diagnostic performance of the 4 modifications of SARC-F.
They performed sensitivity/specificity analyses and compared the overall diagnostic accuracy of the 5 questionnaires in 260 community-dwelling volunteers aged ≥ 60 yrs from Poland. The study used 3 reference standards: the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Older People (EWGSOP1), EWGSOP2, and modified EWGSOP2 criteria.
The results found that the prevalence of sarcopenia based on these criteria was 20.8%, 11.2%, and 17.3%, respectively. Concerning the 3 reference standards, the sensitivity of SARC-F, SARC-CalF, SARC-F+EBM, SARC-F+AC, and SARC-CalF+AC ranged from 31.5–44.8%, 57.4–65.5%, 48.1–62.1%, 71.4–79.2%, and 71.4–79.2%, respectively. The specificity ranged from 86.6–87.4%, 86.1–90.3%, 82.3–84.0%, 69.4–78.2%, and 72.1–79.7%, respectively. The Area-under-the-curves of SARC-F, SARC-CalF, SARC-F+EBM, SARC-F+AC, and SARC-CalF+AC ranged from 0.643–0.700, 0.757–0.792, 0.740–0.775, 0.767–0.812, and 0.771–0.852, respectively.
In their conclusion, the team wrote that the SARC-F questionnaire had low diagnostic accuracy, which limits its usefulness as a sarcopenia screening tool. Incorporating 2 simple anthropometric measurements, ie, arm and calf circumference, they wrote, notably improves the diagnostic performance of SARC-F. Based on these results, they concluded that SARC-CalF+AC seems to be the best screening tool for sarcopenia screening in community-dwelling older adults.
Source: Krzymińska-Siemaszko R, Deskur-Śmielecka E, Kaluźniak-Szymanowska A, Murawiak M, Wieczorowska-Tobis K. Comparison of Diagnostic Value of the SARC-F and Its Four Modified Versions in Polish Community-Dwelling Older Adults. Clin Interv Aging. 2022;18:783-797. doi: 10.2147/CIA.S408616.
