3.1 Baseline patient characteristics and study design
Baseline patient and tumor characteristics of 108 mRCC patients are presented according to gender in Table 1. The whole study population received targeted therapy (pazopanib, n=64; sunitinib, n=44). Clear cell histology (72.2%) was the most common subtype. During a median follow-up of 22 months (range: 2–102 months), 38 (35.2%) patients died and 28 (25.9%) patients were considered obese (BMI of ≥30 kg /m2). According to the IMDC criteria [4]; of the 108 patients, 9 (8.3%) were in favorable-risk group, 66 (61.1%) in intermediate-risk group and 33 (30.5%) in poor-risk group.
Body composition parameters differed between men and women listed in Table 2. While median baseline total adipose tissue index (TATI) and subcutaneous adipose tissue index (SATI) were significantly higher in females than males, median baseline skeletal muscle index (SMI) was higher in males (P<0.001). None of the second and change measures of all VBC parameters exhibited a significant difference among males and females and also none of the VBC parameters was associated with pathologic features of RCC including histological subtype, tumor grade, or tumor size (data not shown)