A prospective nutritional assessment using Mini Nutritional Assessment-short form among patients with head and neck cancer receiving concurrent chemoradiotherapy

Author(s):  
Chia-Yen Hung ◽  
Shun-Wen Hsueh ◽  
Chang-Hsien Lu ◽  
Pei-Hung Chang ◽  
Ping-Tsung Chen ◽  
...  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shun-Wen Hsueh ◽  
Cheng-Chou Lai ◽  
Chia-Yen Hung ◽  
Yu-Ching Lin ◽  
Chang-Hsien Lu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) treatment incompletion is a known negative prognosticator for patients with head and neck cancer (HNC). Malnutrition is a common phenomenon which leads to treatment interruption in patients with HNC. We aimed to compare the performance of three nutritional tools in predicting treatment incompletion in patients with HNC undergoing definitive CCRT. Material and methods Three nutritional assessment tools, Mini Nutritional Assessment-Short Form (MNA-SF), Malnutritional Universal Screening Tool (MUST), and Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002), were prospectively assessed prior to CCRT for HNC patients. Patients were stratified into either normal nutrition or malnourished groups using different nutrition tools. Treatment incompletion and treatment-related toxicities associated with CCRT were recorded. Results A total of 461 patients were included in the study; malnourished rates ranged from 31.0–51.0%. The CCRT incompletion rates were 4.9–6.3% and 14.5–18.2% for normal nutrition patients and malnourished patients, respectively. The tools had significant correlations with each other (Pearson correlation 0.801–0.837, p < 0.001 for all) and accurately predicted the incompletion of CCRT. MNA-SF had the highest performance in predicting treatment-related toxicity, including emergency room visits, need for hospitalization, any grade III or higher hematological adverse events, and critical body weight loss, compared to the other tools. Conclusions MNA-SF, MUST, and NRS2002 were all shown to be competent tools for malnutrition recognition and prediction of treatment incompletion, as well as treatment-related toxicity, in HNC patients undergoing CCRT. We suggest implementing nutritional assessment prior to treatment to improve the rate of treatment completion and to reduce treatment-related toxicity in HNC patients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-14
Author(s):  
Shirin Fattahi ◽  
Farshad Seyyednejad ◽  
Sarvin Sanaie ◽  
Tahereh Parhizkar ◽  
Elnaz Faramarzi

Introduction: Considering the important role of early detection of malnutrition in patients with cancer and its negative effects on the outcome, as well as the lack of any published article (to the best of our knowledge) about the dietary quality index in head and neck cancer patients treated with chemoradio therapy, we decided to evaluate the nutritional status and dietary quality index in these patients. Methods: In this study, thirty-seven volunteer patients with head and neck cancer were recruited. Nutritional status of the patients was evaluated by Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) questionnaire. Dietary diversity score, dietary variety score, and diet quality index–international were calculated to assess the dietary quality of the patients. Results: Our findings indicated that about half of the patients were well nourished and 48.6%were at the risk of malnutrition. We did not find any significant differences between variousdietary quality indices and nutritional status of the patients. However, a significant reverse correlation was observed between dietary quality indices and nutritional status of the patients. Conclusion: According to our findings, the evaluation of nutritional status and the prediction of the patients at higher risks of chemoradio therapy-induced adverse events, may have a major role in the prevention of treatment gaps.


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