Poster Presentation Australian and New Zealand Society for Geriatric Medicine Annual Scientific Meeting 2025

Temporalis muscle thickness as a radiological biomarker for sarcopenia in healthy older adults (118151)

Andrew Huynh 1 2 , Scott Wrigley 1 , James Andrews 3 , Belinda Brown 4 , Sanka Amadoru 1 2 , Qiongshi Lu 5 , Ting Ye 6 , Jeremiah Peiffer 4 , Paul Crane 7 , Christopher Rowe 8 , Louise Burrell 2 , Paul Yates 1 2
  1. Department of Geriatric Medicine, Austin Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  2. Department of Medicine, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
  3. Division of Clinical Immunology and Rheumatology, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America
  4. Centre for Healthy Ageing, Health Futures Institute, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
  5. Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
  6. Department of Biostatistics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
  7. Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America
  8. Department of Molecular Imaging and Therapy, Austin Health and University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Background Sarcopenia, an age-related loss of skeletal muscle strength, mass and physical performance, is associated with adverse outcomes. Temporalis muscle thickness (TMT), obtained on brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), has been proposed as a sarcopenia biomarker. We aimed to determine if TMT correlates with appendicular skeletal muscle mass (ASM) via dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), a guideline-recommended test to diagnose sarcopenia, and could be used to assess for sarcopenia.

Methods Retrospective study of healthy older adults in the Intense Physical Activity and Cognition study, in whom MRI and DXA obtained on the same visit were analyzed. TMT was measured on axial T1-weighted MRIs bilaterally, and average TMT used for analysis. ASM was adjusted for body size (height2). Sarcopenia was defined as ASM< 7.0 kg/m2 for males and <5.5 kg/m2 for females as per the 2019 European working group on sarcopenia in older people criteria(1). Pearson correlation assessed the relationship between TMT and ASM or age. 

Results There were 95 participants (mean±standard deviation [SD] age 69.1±5.2 years, 53% female,11% had sarcopenia). The mean±SD ASM was 7.0±1.2 kg/m2 and TMT was 7.3±1.2 mm. TMT and ASM were moderately correlated (r=0.41, 95% confidence interval 0.23 – 0.56). TMT did not correlate with age but differed significantly between those with (mean±SD 7.4±1.2) and without sarcopenia (mean±SD 6.2±0.8, p=0.004).

Conclusion Among a cohort of healthy older adults, TMT demonstrated moderate correlation with ASM.  Future studies could explore the relationship between TMT and long-term clinical and functional outcomes, and whether TMT could identify people for interventional trials.

  1. Cruz-Jentoft AJ, Bahat G, Bauer J, Boirie Y, Bruyère O, Cederholm T, et al. Sarcopenia: revised European consensus on definition and diagnosis. Age and ageing. 2019;48(1):16-31.