Diagnostic Performance of SARC-F and SARC-CalF in Screening for Sarcopenia in Postmenopausal Women

Background: Sarcopenia is a progressive loss of muscle strength and mass, highly prevalent among postmenopausal women. Early identification is critical, yet challenging in low-resource settings. This study evaluates and compares the diagnostic performance of SARC-F and SARC-CalF screening tools against EWGSOP2 criteria. Methods: A cross-sectional observational study was conducted on 370 postmenopausal women at Upper India Sugar Exchange Maternity Hospital, GSVM Medical College, Kanpur. Participants were evaluated using the SARC-F and SARC-CalF tools. Probable sarcopenia was confirmed using European working group on sarcopenia in older people 2 (EWGSOP2) cutoff (handgrip strength <16 kg). Sensitivity, specificity, Positive predictive Value, Negative Predictive Value, ROC-AUC, and diagnostic accuracy were calculated. Results: The prevalence of probable sarcopenia was 78.6%. SARC-F demonstrated sensitivity of 91.4% and specificity of 22.8%, while SARC-CalF showed significantly better sensitivity (99.3%) and specificity (100%). The Area Under Curve (AUC) for SARC-CalF was 0.980 (p<0.001). SARC-CalF had a Kappa agreement of 0.89 with the reference standard. Conclusion: SARC-CalF is a simple, accurate, and superior screening tool for sarcopenia in postmenopausal women. It should be adopted in both clinical and community-based screening protocols, especially in settings with limited access to advanced diagnostic modalities.