Physical performance may help assess heart failure prognosis, but evidence is uncertain
A review ranked a physical performance battery above other muscle-related measures, although study differences and weak evidence make the ranking tentative.
Based on the published abstract. The full paper may contain additional methods, results and limitations.
The 30-second takeaway
The review ranked the Short Physical Performance Battery as the strongest predictor of an adverse prognosis among the muscle-related measures examined in people with heart failure. However, results differed substantially across studies, and evidence certainty was low to very low. These observational findings do not show that changing a performance score would improve health outcomes.
The abstract does not define the pooled adverse outcomes or reference groups, and the relationship between its P values and confidence intervals is unclear. This limits interpretation of the reported risk estimates.
What was compared
The researchers combined studies that followed people with heart failure over time. They compared the prognostic associations of a physical performance battery, sarcopenia itself, muscle strength, walking speed and muscle mass using a network meta-analysis.
Why the ranking is fragile
The extreme association for the performance battery depended on the cutoffs used. That sensitivity, along with substantial variation between studies, weakens confidence in the ranking and supports the authors' call for standardized assessments.
The original publication
The impacts of sarcopenia and its components on heart failure patients: A systematic review and network meta-analysis.
Tran TTQ, Huang SW, Ho HQ et al.
Medicine (Baltimore) · 2025
- PubMed ID
- 41327729
- Record checked
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