Nutritional Screening in a University Hospital: Comparison between Oncologic and Non-Oncologic Patients

Abstract

Background & Aims: We compared the screening nutritional data of patients with malignant and non-malignant disease, and classified their nutritional risk according to the primary tumor’s site. Methods: Subjective Global Assessment was applied to 3008 patients within 48 h of admission to a public university. Subjects were divided into Oncologic Group (n = 576) or Non-Oncologic Group (n = 2432) according to the presence of neoplasms or other diseases respectively. These data were compared by the t-student test and classic chi-square test, with statistical significance set at p < 0.05. Results: The Oncologic Group presented a higher prevalence of weight loss (60.3% vs. 49.3%), quantitative (40.7% vs. 28.5%) and qualitative (16.4% vs. 7.6%) alterations in the food intake pattern, gastrointestinal symptoms and muscle waste (23.2% vs. 13.2%) as compared to the Non-Oncologic Group. Also, there was a higher prevalence of nutritional disturbances in the Oncologic Group, with 49.5% of the subjects moderately (or suspected to be malnourished) and 12.7% severely malnourished. Severe malnourishment was mainly observed in patients with head and neck (25%), upper digestive tract (21.9%) and soft tissue and bones (17.9%) tumors. Conclusion: When compared to other hospitalized patients, patients with neoplastic disease were in higher nutritional risk.