[Nutritional assessment of cancer patients in palliative care is a key element in comprehensive care and survival].

Introduction

palliative care has been linked to the management of patients without a curative option. The detection of malnutrition allows establishing nutritional intervention strategies to make an adequate use of resources and contribute to support measures.

Objective

to describe changes in nutritional status and their impact on survival in patients with cancer disease under palliative care.

Methods

descriptive observational study of a retrospective cohort. The patients had stage IV cancer disease, Karnofsky index ≤70 and a survival prognosis <6 months. A complete nutritional assessment was carried out and they were followed for one year. The nutritional status and its characteristics, the presence of cachexia and the median survival at one year were described.

Results

of 256 patients at the beginning of the follow-up, 60,9 % had some degree of malnutrition, which increased to 71,9 % at the end of the follow-up. There was an increase in patients with a thin body mass index (BMI) (+7.6%, p = 0.04) and a decrease in patients with excess weight (overweight -3.6%, p = 0, 24; and obesity -2.6%, p = 0.17). Overall survival at 1 year was 60 % (95% CI: 53-65).

Conclusion

malnutrition was frequent in patients under palliative care (60,9 %) and increased throughout the follow-up. Differences were observed between the complete nutritional diagnosis and BMI, which can lead to a misclassification of the diagnosis and a decrease in the effectiveness of cancer treatment.