151751-Najiba-Chargi

143 Surgery: skeletal muscle mass and oral cavity cancer INTRODUCTION Sarcopenia has been defined as the loss of skeletal muscle mass (SMM) and strength that occurs with advancing age. 1,2 In oncology the term cachexia is also used, which is defined as a multifactorial syndrome characterised by an ongoing loss of SMM (with or without loss of fat mass) that cannot be fully reversed by conventional nutritional support and leads to progressive functional impairment. 3 In bladder, gastrointestinal and liver cancer surgery, sarcopenia has been associated with worse perioperative outcome 3–8 and poor survival rates. 9–12 Patients with head and neck cancer have increased risk of malnutrition. 13 In head and neck cancer surgery, the association be- tween sarcopenia and poor survival has been shown 14–17 , but data on the association between sarcopenia and perioperative complications are limited to patients undergoing laryngectomy or fibula flap reconstruction. 18–22 Knowledge on the potential association between sarcopenia and perioperative complications could be helpful for surgeons treating patients with head and neck cancer to minimize the risk of perioperative complications. Total body SMM can be measured with several imaging methods. Computed tomography (CT) andmagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are considered to be very precise imagingmethods that can separate fat from other soft tissues of the body, making these methods gold standards for estimating muscle mass. 2,23 The total body SMM has been shown to correlate strongly with measurements of skeletal muscle mass at the level of axial single abdominal CT slices. These transversal single slices are located 5 cm cranially from the fourth lumbar intervertebral disc (L4-L5) 24 or at the level of the third lumbar vertebra (L3). 25 Abdominal CT scans are not part of the routine diagnostic work-up of head and neck cancer patients, but we have shown previously that there is a strong correlation between the SMM at the third cervical vertebra (C3) and the SMM at L3. 26 The aims of this study are to determine whether sarcopenia is associated with perioperative complications in OSCC patients undergoing surgical treatment. We hypothesize that sarco - penia is associated with perioperative complications and that sarcopenia is associated with a longer hospital stay. 8