Detection of muscle wasting in patients with chronic heart failure using C-terminal agrin fragment: results from the Studies Investigating Co-morbidities Aggravating Heart Failure (SICA-HF).

Steinbeck, Lisa; Ebner, Nicole; Valentova, Miroslava; Bekfani, Tarek; Elsner, Sebastian; Dahinden, Pius; Hettwer, Stefan; Scherbakov, Nadja; Sandek, Anja; Springer, Jochen; Doehner, Wolfram; Anker, Stefan D; von Haehling, Stephan; Schefold, Joerg C. (2015). Detection of muscle wasting in patients with chronic heart failure using C-terminal agrin fragment: results from the Studies Investigating Co-morbidities Aggravating Heart Failure (SICA-HF). European journal of heart failure, 17(12), pp. 1283-1293. Oxford University Press 10.1002/ejhf.400

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AIMS

Skeletal muscle wasting affects 20% of patients with chronic heart failure and has serious implications for their activities of daily living. Assessment of muscle wasting is technically challenging. C-terminal agrin-fragment (CAF), a breakdown product of the synaptically located protein agrin, has shown early promise as biomarker of muscle wasting. We sought to investigate the diagnostic properties of CAF in muscle wasting among patients with heart failure.

METHODS AND RESULTS

We assessed serum CAF levels in 196 patients who participated in the Studies Investigating Co-morbidities Aggravating Heart Failure (SICA-HF). Muscle wasting was identified using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) in 38 patients (19.4%). Patients with muscle wasting demonstrated higher CAF values than those without (125.1 ± 59.5 pmol/L vs. 103.8 ± 42.9 pmol/L, P = 0.01). Using receiver operating characteristics (ROC), we calculated the optimal CAF value to identify patients with muscle wasting as >87.5 pmol/L, which had a sensitivity of 78.9% and a specificity of 43.7%. The area under the ROC curve was 0.63 (95% confidence interval 0.56-0.70). Using simple regression, we found that serum CAF was associated with handgrip (R = - 0.17, P = 0.03) and quadriceps strength (R = - 0.31, P < 0.0001), peak oxygen consumption (R = - 0.5, P < 0.0001), 6-min walk distance (R = - 0.32, P < 0.0001), and gait speed (R = - 0.2, P = 0.001), as well as with parameters of kidney and liver function, iron metabolism and storage.

CONCLUSION

CAF shows good sensitivity for the detection of skeletal muscle wasting in patients with heart failure. Its assessment may be useful to identify patients who should undergo additional testing, such as detailed body composition analysis. As no other biomarker is currently available, further investigation is warranted.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

04 Faculty of Medicine > Department of Intensive Care, Emergency Medicine and Anaesthesiology (DINA) > Clinic of Intensive Care
04 Faculty of Medicine > Pre-clinic Human Medicine > BioMedical Research (DBMR) > Forschungsbereich Pavillon 52 > Forschungsgruppe Intensivmedizin

UniBE Contributor:

Schefold, Jörg Christian

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health

ISSN:

1388-9842

Publisher:

Oxford University Press

Language:

English

Submitter:

Alessandra Angelini

Date Deposited:

04 Feb 2016 09:37

Last Modified:

02 Mar 2023 23:27

Publisher DOI:

10.1002/ejhf.400

PubMed ID:

26449626

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Agrin; Biomarker; Heart Failure; Muscle wasting; Sarcopenia

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.74873

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/74873

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