Low Skeletal Muscle Mass Is a Risk Factor for Aspiration Pneumonia During Chemoradiotherapy

OBJECTIVES This study aimed to investigate whether pretreatment skeletal muscle mass index (SMI) is a predictor for the risk of aspiration pneumonia and to explore the relationship between low SMI and overall survival (OS) in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) receiving chemoradiotherapy (CRT). METHODS We retrospectively reviewed the data of patients with HNSCC who received CRT during 2010-2019. Patients received a combination of radiotherapy and cisplatin-based chemotherapy (3 cycles of 80 mg/m2 cisplatin on days 1, 22, and 43). Aspiration pneumonia were defined as the presence of both subjective and objective symptoms. Kaplan-Meier curves were generated to analyze survival. RESULTS Among the 159 patients, 36 (22.6%) developed aspiration pneumonia during treatment. Median SMI in patients with and without pneumonia was 12.4 cm2 /m2 (9.0-20.7) and 13.6 cm2 /m2 (8.1-19.7), respectively (P