CN82 - Nurses management of malnutrition risk in cancer patients: The importance of screening tools

Background

Malnutrition is a frequent risk for cancer patients; its prevalence is from 20% to 70% and is related by factor such as cancer type, stage and age of patients. The nutritional status generally worse with the progression of the disease or the increase of cycles of chemotherapy treatments. However, malnutrition can appear at any stage of the disease, including at diagnosis. Nurses should be familiar and use nutritional screening tools to reduce the risk of malnutrition and to allow to patients a better quality of care and life.

Methods

A non-systematic literature review was conducted on PubMed, Cinahl and Scopus spanning from May to September 2023. The keywords used were tumor, cancer, neoplasm, malnutrition, nutritional, tool, instrument, scale. The PRISMA flow diagram was used to report the studies selection: a total of 1085 records were identified. After removed duplicates (496), records were excluded through screening by title (538) and abstract (37). Fourteen articles were evaluated in full text and 6 articles were included in the final review. Inclusion criteria were: (1) malnutrition in cancer patients; (2) English language; (3) malnutrition assessment tools.

Results

Four main themes were identified from the results: 1) use of nutritional screening tools: it is essential to perform nutritional evaluation at the time of diagnosis and during oncological treatment; 2) multidisciplinary team work: involvement of various health professionals improves therapeutic program; 3) education on proper nutritional style: education about food and nutrients improves the nutritional status of patients; 4) quality of life: early assessment of malnutrition risk improves patients' living conditions and promotes treatment compliance.

Conclusions

There is currently no universally accepted gold standard for assessing cancer patients’ nutritional status. It is essential for nurses to identify the risk of malnutrition and coordinate a multi-professional care plan for patients.

Clinical trial identification

Editorial acknowledgement

Legal entity responsible for the study

The authors.

Funding

Has not received any funding.

Disclosure

All authors have declared no conflicts of interest.