Influence of malnutrition on the quality of life for the cancer patient before the beginning of the chemotherapy/radiotherapy treatment

Abstract

Introduction: The measurement of the quality of life (QL) in the oncological patient makes it possible to establish an individual's perception of his state of health - illness and the treatment instituted. The aim of this study is to analyze the influence of nutritional status on the QL of patients. Material and methods: A transversal study was carried out at the Ramon y Cajal Hospital in 53 oncological patients over a period of 6 months. These patients were given the global subjective assessment (VGS), a 24-hour memory of the previous day's intake, and were given the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer quality of Life Questionnaire Core 30 (EORTC QLQ-C30). Of these 53 patients, 9 were excluded due to incomplete completion of the EORTC QLQ C-30 questionnaire. Of the remaining 44 patients, 52.3% belonged to the group of safe normonutrids (SGA A); 27.3% to the group of patients at risk of malnutrition (SGA B) and the remaining 20,5% to the group of patients with severe malnutrition (SGA C). Results: The functional scales (physical, social, emotional and cognitive functioning) were least affected by the nutritional status of the patients, with a value of p>0.05, while the functional or role scale (p 0.002), together with the overall health scale (p 0.049), as well as the symptoms of fatigue (p 0.011), nausea and vomiting (p 0.004) and the simple item of loss of appetite (p 0.001) are those that showed a statistically significant association with nutritional status. Conclusions: Malnutrition negatively affects the QL of oncology patients especially on the functional, overall health and symptom scales. More studies are needed to assess whether early nutritional intervention can reverse this negative influence of malnutrition.