*Authors LH and JF contributed equally to work
Introduction:
While metastatic disease is associated with both lower total fat mass and lower muscle mass in many cancers, little is known about the relationship between body composition and clinical presentation of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). This study examined the association between stage of PDAC at diagnosis and body composition phenotype.
Methods:
Patients with PDAC were identified using an ICD-10 coding search, and characterised using medical records. Slice-o-matic software was used to perform all body composition analysis with a single slice of the diagnosis computed tomography (CT) scan at spinal level L3. Due to the non-parametric nature of the data Mann-Whitney test was used to analyse all continuous data, and chi square test was used for categorical data.
Results:
This study included 170 patients with advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. Of these, 83 were male (49%) and the median age was 69 years (60-75). 66 patients had stage III cancer and 104 patients had stage IV cancer, There was no significant difference in gender (p=0.2) or age between the stage groups, however the median age of the stage III group was significantly more than the stage IV group (71 years v 67 years, p=0.04). Between the stage III and stage IV groups there was no significant difference in median total fat mass (367cm2 v 352cm2, p=0.8) or skeletal muscle index (45cm2 /m2 v 44cm2/m2, p=0.07).
Discussion:
Unlike many other cancers, there was no difference in body composition between patients with stage III PDAC at diagnosis, compared to those with stage IV.