ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Gastrointestinal Cancers: Gastric and Esophageal Cancers
Bioelectrical Impedance Analysis–Derived Skeletal Muscle Mass Index versus Computed Tomography for the detection of Muscle Mass Reduction in Gastrointestinal Cancer Patients: a cross-sectional study
Provisionally accepted
- 1Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, Nanjing, China
- 2Xuzhou Central Hospital, Xuzhou, China
- 3Jinshan Hospital of Fudan University, Shanghai, China
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Background: This study aimed to assess the precision of bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) in evaluating muscle mass and to establish a population-specific cutoff value for identifying muscle mass reduction in Chinese gastric cancer population. Methods: 163 gastric cancer patients were enrolled. Skeletal muscle mass was measured at the L3 level using computed tomography (CT) scans. Muscle mass was concurrently evaluated using BIA. The correlations of muscle mass between CT and BIA methods were assessed. Data consistency was analyzed by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The optimal cut-off value of the BIA-derived skeletal muscle index (SMI) for identifying muscle mass reduction was determined by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results: The mean skeletal muscle mass measured by CT and BIA were 118.81±24.54 cm2 and 25.11±4.37 kg in overall patients, respectively. The mean SMI measured by BIA was 9.42±1.09 kg/m2. SMI measured by CT was correlated with that measured by BIA (r=0.727, p<0.001). The ICC between the two methods was 0.903, indicating a satisfactory consistency. The optimal BIA-derived SMI cutoff values for identifying muscle mass reduction were 9.46 kg/m² for men and 8.72 kg/m² for women in this population. Conclusions: Muscle mass assessed by BIA showed a high correlation and satisfactory consistency with that measured by CT scan.
Keywords: bioelectrical impedance analysis, CT scan, gastric cancer, muscle mass, nutrition
Received: 17 Dec 2025; Accepted: 04 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Gao, Yuan, Zhang, Chen, Li and Chen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Xiangrui Li
Xiaotian Chen
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