Hematological Toxicity in Low Muscle Mass Breast Cancer Patient Underwent Chemotherapy: A Preliminary Study

Abstract Background Chemotherapy, as treatment, may responsible for undesired side effects, such as sarcopenia and chemotherapy toxicity. Based on the previous study, slow muscle mass may increase hematological toxicity and decrease response of chemotherapy effectiveness. The reported data about hematological chemotherapy toxicity and low muscle mass in Indonesian breast cancer patients is very limited thus the aim of this study to find out the prevalence and association between them. Methods This was cross-sectional study, conducted in our general hospital at Tangerang, Indonesia. Muscle mass was measured using Bio Impedance analysis. The first step, Asian Working Group for Sarcopenia (AWGS) criteria is used to count muscle mass cut-off in Indonesian population by height-based muscle mass. AWGS recommends to define low muscle mass as below the mean minus 2 standard deviation. The second step, blood sample from breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy were taken consecutively. The cut-off for defining anemia is hemoglobin Results The first step of the study included 137 young adult women. Cut off point of muscle mass in Indonesian female was 4.781 kg/m2. The second step, a total of 36 breast cancer patients with mean age 48.08±9.73 were included. Anemia was found in 20 (54%) subjects, leukopenia in 2 (5.5%) subjects, thrombocytopenia in 1 (2.7%) subject. In this study, patient with low muscle mass only found in 1 of 37 patients. Conclusion Cut-off muscle mass for Indonesian female is 4.781kg/m2, lower than AWGS standard. There is no statistically significant between low muscle mass and hematological toxicity in breast cancer patient. Further study needs to be evaluated in bigger population to confirm this result.