Assessment of the nutritive status in cancer patients of the palliative care department

Abstract

Introduction. Nutritional status disorders are common among cancer patients. These disorders significantly reduce the quality of life and worsen the prognosis. Objective: to assess the prevalence of trophic insufficiency in palliative care cancer patients.Materials and methods. An observational, analytical, single-stage (crosssectional) study was conducted, which included 106 cancer patients of a palliative profile. The patients underwent laboratory and instrumental examination, a comprehensive assessment of the trophic status. Results. 77 (72.6%) of the examined patients showed signs of nutritional deficiency. Signs of hypotrophy were found in 19 patients. Hypotrophy of the III degree was not detected in any of the cases, of the II degree — in 4 patients, of the I degree — in 15 patients. Normal or elevated body mass index in some cases is associated with a violation of the nutritional status. A detailed study of the trophic status in cancer patients with palliative profile showed a different significance of each criterion studied. The study of the level of total protein (χ²=1.07, p=0.348), albumin (χ² =7.42, p=0.006), the number of peripheral blood lymphocytes (χ²=12.61, p=0.0004) allowed more often to diagnose a violation of the nutritional status in comparison with somatometric indicators (χ² =2.07, p=0.153) and  the value of transferin (χ² =1.07, p=0.348). The study of variants of the combination of reduced indicators of nutritional status in the examined group of patients showed that the use of one criterion in isolation from other clinical and laboratory indicators will lead to underdiagnosis and underestimation of the severity of trophic disorders.Conclusion. In cancer patients with a palliative profile, nutritional disorders are detected with a high frequency. Somatometric indicators of nutritional status do not fully reflect the presence of trophic disorders. A decrease in the level of albumin, total protein, and the number of peripheral blood lymphocytes makes it possible to more often diagnose a violation of the nutritional status in the studied group of patients. However, none of the criteria for nutritional insufficiency can be used in isolation.