Abstract
BACKGROUND/AIM: The bioimpedance analysis (BIA) can provide anthropometric data on patients. The aim of the study is to evaluate the clinical relevance of these automatically obtained values. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We studied the arm circumference (AC) and arm muscle circumference (AMC) of 197 histologically proven cirrhotic patients. The BIA-based anthropometric data were compared to the manually measured data. In addition, we evaluated whether or not the BIA-based anthropometric data were associated with the prognosis of the patients. RESULTS: The data of %AC and %AMC obtained using the two methods were well correlated (p<0.001) with relatively inconspicuous differences (approximately 6.0% for %AC and 16.0% for %AMC). The data of %AC and %AMC obtained from the BIA method were significantly associated with the prognosis of the patients. CONCLUSION: The BIA-based anthropometric data were associated with the direct measurement data and related to the prognosis of cirrhotic patients.