Maarten van Egmond

77 The association of muscle strength with muscle mass 4 CONCLUSIONS This study contributes to the physiotherapeutic assessment of muscle function in relation to muscle mass and the possible functional consequences, as well as perspectives for tailored functional muscle training in preoperative patients with esophageal cancer. For future research, we should further investigate the predictive value of muscle strength for the presence of sarcopenia and the functional consequences in a cohort of both sarcopenic and non-sarcopenic patients, taking the continuous developments of defining and conceptualizing sarcopenia into account. If physiotherapists are able to identify patients who are at risk for decreased muscle function and eventually sarcopenia, it allows them to provide these high-risk patients with a physiotherapeutic intervention to increase muscle mass and muscle strength, which may subsequently improve postoperative recovery and functional outcome.