Identifying High-Attenuating and Low-Attenuating Muscle Using Computerized Tomography and Exploring Its Impact on Physical Function and Muscle Strength in Obese Critically Ill Patients.

Background: Computed tomography (CT) methods to estimate sarcopenia in obesity do not differentiate high-attenuating from low-attenuating muscle. The primary purpose of this study was to determine agreement between a CT method using general workstation-derived total and high-attenuating psoas muscle cross-sectional area (CSA) and a commercially available segmentation software-derived value. Secondary purpose was to explore the relationship between quantity of high-attenuating muscle to physical functioning in a pilot cohort of obese medical intensive care unit (MICU) patients.