Table 4.

Overall and subgroup effects of low muscle mass vs. high muscle mass on overall survival in prostate cancer patients.

Analysis	No. of comparisons	Sample size	Main effect			Subgroup differences
			HR (95% CI)	I2	p value	χ2	p value
Multivariate analysis
Overall effect	9	3275	1.50 (1.10–2.05)	88%	0.009	–	–
Overall effect without outlier	8	3093	1.63 (1.27–2.08)	58%	<0.001	–	–
Population subgroups
Advanced diseasea	5	723	1.43 (1.07–1.92)	34%	0.020	1.8	0.184
Localised disease	3	2370	1.91 (1.40–2.62)	52%	<0.001
Previously defined cut-off values
Yesa	5	1751	1.50 (1.01–2.22)	56%	0.036	0.4	0.532
No	3	1342	1.77 (1.27–2.48)	67%	<0.001
Multivariate models controlling for BMI
Yesa	4	1574	1.48 (0.98–2.26)	77%	0.060	0.5	0.502
No	4	1519	1.77 (1.32–2.36)	17%	<0.001
Univariate analysis
Overall effect	13	2638	1.40 (1.13–1.72)	64%	0.002	–	–
Overall effect without outlier	12	1618	1.31 (1.09–1.58)	39%	0.004	–	–
Population subgroups
Advanced disease	11	1565	1.32 (1.09–1.61)	44%	0.005	0.7	0.413
Localised disease	2	1073	1.74 (0.93–3.25)	62%	0.083
Previously defined cut-off values
Yes	6	832	1.32 (0.80–2.17)	67%	0.271	0.0	0.974
Noa	6	1099	1.33 (1.15–1.54)	0%	<0.001

BMI body mass index, HR hazard ratio, I² indicator of heterogeneity (%).

^aAdjustment after sensitivity analysis omitting one study at a time.