Abstract 1677P
Background
Body weight and height measurements are not always recorded contemporaneously in patients undergoing surgery or radiotherapy. Hence assessment of patients’ historical body mass index (BMI) relies on patients’ memory which is often subject to recall bias. Validated anthropometric measurements that can be obtained from cross-sectional imaging would greatly aid assessment of patients’ historical BMI.
Methods
Planning CT scans of 58 consecutive bladder cancer pts who underwent radical radiotherapy and chemotherapy were accessed. Contemporaneously recorded height and weight measurements were obtained from Chemotherapy electronic prescription system and BMI computed. Using a digital ruler, these two measurements were obtained from the transverse pelvic CT scans: (1) Suprapubic soft tissue thickness (2) Body width at femoral head level.
Results
Pubic soft-tissue thickness and body-width at femoral head level were highly correlated with BMI. Pearson correlation coefficient showed a strong positive correlation between these two variables with BMI. (suprapubic r = 0.790, p < 0.001; Body width r = 0.810, p < 0.001). As expected, none of the patients in our sample were underweight. One-way ANOVA testing showed a statistically significant difference in both the anthropometric measurements relative to the various BMI ranges (Table).
Conclusions
Our study shows that routine CT scans obtained in cancer patients can provide anthropometric measurements which can serve as objective, reliable and reproducible markers of BMI when contemporaneously recorded height and weight charts are not available. These measurements are easily obtainable and do not need much skill. These two measurements - suprapubic soft-tissue thickness and body width at femoral-head level - can help to determine historical premorbid BMI and can help to assess the impact of cancer associated malnutrition on survival and quality of life (Table). Table: 1677P
| Body mass index (kg/m2) | Suprapubic soft-tissue thickness (mean) | p-value | Body width at the femoral head level (mean) | p-value |
| Underweight = <18.5 | - | - | - | - |
| Normal weight = 18.5–24.9 Overweight = 25–29.9 Obesity = BMI of >30 | 5.01 cm 6.08 cm 7.83 cm | one-way ANOVA (F = 16.697, p < 0.001) | 33.5cm 34.9 cm 38.3 cm | one-way ANOVA (F = 27.251, p < 0.001) |
Clinical trial identification
Editorial acknowledgement
Legal entity responsible for the study
S. Sundar.
Funding
Has not received any funding.
Disclosure
S. Sundar: Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker: Bayer; Financial Interests, Personal, Advisory Board: Bayer; Financial Interests, Personal, Other, Conference Sponsorship: BMS; Financial Interests, Personal, Invited Speaker: Clovis Oncology; Financial Interests, Personal, Other, Conference Sponsorship: Bayer. All other authors have declared no conflicts of interest.