Tirzepatide in sarcopenia and lean-mass preservation during weight reduction — evidence extract
The Institute's graded assessment of Tirzepatide for sarcopenia and lean-mass preservation during weight reduction, with the contributing trials and the domain-by-domain certainty reasoning.
§1Evidence extract: Sarcopenia and lean-mass preservation during weight reduction
§1.1Question and anchor outcome
- Population
- Loss of skeletal muscle mass and function, considered here principally as a consequence of rapid weight reduction under incretin therapy.
- Intervention
- Tirzepatide, subcutaneous once weekly
- Comparator
- As used in each contributing trial; reported per trial rather than pooled across comparator types
- Anchor outcome
- Change in appendicular lean mass by DXA
Additional outcomes the Institute extracts for this indication: Change in fat-free mass by MRI; Grip strength; Physical performance battery.
§1.2Contributing trials
Table 1. Trials contributing to the assessment of Tirzepatide in sarcopenia and lean-mass preservation during weight reduction.
| Trial | Phase | Design | Randomised | Duration | Year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SURMOUNT-1 | 3 | Randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled | 2,539 | 72 weeks | 2022 |
§1.3Certainty assessment
Table 2. Reasoning recorded against each certainty domain.
| Domain | Rating | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| Risk of bias | Serious | Differential attrition exceeded the pre-specified threshold in one arm. |
| Inconsistency | No concern | No serious concern identified in this domain. |
| Indirectness | No concern | No serious concern identified in this domain. |
| Imprecision | No concern | No serious concern identified in this domain. |
| Publication bias | Serious | Registered trials without posted results were identified for this question. |
| Overall rating: Low certainty. Confidence in the effect estimate is limited. The true effect may be substantially different from the estimate. | ||
§1.4What this extract does not establish
References cited on this page
References are numbered in order of first citation in this document. Each superscript in the text links to its entry below.
- Jastreboff AM, Aronne LJ, Ahmad NN, Wharton S, Connery L, Alves B, Kiyosue A, Zhang S, Liu B, Bunck MC, Stefanski A. Tirzepatide once weekly for the treatment of obesity. New England Journal of Medicine 2022;387(3):205–216. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2206038 · PMID 35658024
- Garvey WT, Frias JP, Jastreboff AM, le Roux CW, Sattar N, Aizenberg D, Mao H, Zhang S, Ahmad NN, Bunck MC, Benabbad I, Zhang XM. Tirzepatide once weekly for the treatment of obesity in people with type 2 diabetes (SURMOUNT-2): a double-blind, randomised, multicentre, placebo-controlled, phase 3 trial. The Lancet 2023;402(10402):613–626. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01200-X · PMID 37385275
- Wadden TA, Chao AM, Machineni S, Kushner R, Ard J, Srivastava G, Halpern B, Zhang S, Chen J, Bunck MC, Ahmad NN, Forrester T. Tirzepatide after intensive lifestyle intervention in adults with overweight or obesity: the SURMOUNT-3 phase 3 trial. Nature Medicine 2023;29(11):2909–2918. doi:10.1038/s41591-023-02597-w · PMID 37840095
Identifiers are reproduced only where the Institute holds them. Where a digital object identifier or PubMed identifier is not shown, the Institute has recorded the journal and year and has not constructed an identifier.