ARTICLE BY DR. FANNY PETERMANN-ROCHA WAS POSITIONED AS THE MOST CITED AND WITH THE LARGEST NUMBER OF ACCESSES IN THE “JOURNAL OF CACHEXIA, SARCOPENIA AND MUSCLE” MAGAZINE FROM WILEY ONLINE LIBRARY

“I am very proud of all the big and small achievements that I have achieved in my career as a researcher”, highlighted the academic.

UDP communications.- We spoke with the academic from the Faculty of Medicine of the Diego Portales University (UDP), Dr. Fanny Petermann-Rocha, whose article “Worldwide prevalence of sarcopenia and severe sarcopenia: systematic review and meta-analysis”was selected as one of the most cited and with the greatest number of accesses in the last two years by the magazine “Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle” from the scientific bookstore Wiley Online. Check out the interview below.

• How important is it for you as a researcher that your work has been selected as the most cited and with the greatest access in the last two years?

I am very proud of all the big and small achievements that I have achieved in my career as a researcher, which has given me great satisfaction at my young age.

• In simple words, what is the article about?

The article is a systematic review and meta-analysis on the prevalence of sarcopenia and severe sarcopenia worldwide. Among the points that stand out from the article, and that differentiate it from others, is the number of articles finally included (263 in the systematic review and 151 in the meta-analysis), the subclassification of sarcopenia according to the diagnostic criteria used (6 classifications and 23 subgroups were included), the inclusion of severe sarcopenia as well as obtaining prevalence by age, sex and continent subgroups.

• What do you think caused the high interest in him?

Sarcopenia is a progressive and complex disease associated with an increased burden of morbidity and mortality. In this context, its detection is gaining more and more strength among the elderly and even middle-aged people (under 60 years of age). Due to the above, and despite the fact that other attempts to obtain the worldwide prevalence had been made, our article managed to overcome some of the previous limitations by granting prevalences by subgroups.

• How important is academic research for the medical and health area?

Despite advances in the field, there is currently no single diagnosis to identify sarcopenia. In this context, and considering that there are wide variations in the estimated prevalence of sarcopenia due to the different diagnostic criteria used, differences in the methods to measure muscle mass, differences in the cut-off points applied and populations studied, our study gives prevalences according to diagnostic criteria, which makes it possible to reduce the existing heterogeneity in the matter.

We congratulate the also academic of the UDP Biomedical Research Center for this excellent achievement.