Associations of muscle thickness and echo intensity with pneumonia onset in patients with severe cerebral palsy: a longitudinal study.

INTRODUCTION/AIMS: Pneumonia onset is associated with decreased muscle mass in patients with severe cerebral palsy (CP). In this longitudinal study, we examined whether ultrasound-derived muscle thickness (MT) and echo intensity (EI) are linked to pneumonia onset in patients with severe CP.

METHODS

We included 71 patients with severe CP (45 males, 26 females; mean age 43.3 years) and investigated the association between MT and EI of six muscles (quadriceps, biceps brachii, rectus abdominis, internal oblique [IO], external oblique, and transverse abdominis) and pneumonia onset over a 6-month follow-up.

RESULTS

Logistic regression analysis showed that lower MT in the IO was significantly associated with pneumonia development after adjusting for prior pneumonia and other confounders.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest that low IO MT may help identify patients with severe CP at risk of pneumonia onset.