Association between weight loss and clinical-pathologic factors in oncological patients in chemotherapy treatment: A longitudinal study

Abstract

The present work aimed to study the relation between weight loss (WL) and clinical-pathologic factors in patients under chemotherapy treatment. It was a longitudinal observational study performed with patients assisted in an oncological ambulatory. The sample was composed of 402 patients, with an average age of 58.4 ± 13.6 years, of which 56.5% were women, and 51.7% were elderly. Regarding tumor localization, 12.9% were found in the head and neck, 22.6% in the breast, 10.2% in the lungs, 29.4% in the gastrointestinal tract (GI), and 24.9% in other body parts. A gradual fall of nutritional state in relation to BMI was observed, and the patients were advancing to malnutrition. When correlating the severe and non-severe weight loss (WL) with anthropometric data, a significant difference was obtained (p < 0.05). The overweight and obese patients had a greater severe WL in relation to the eutrophic and low weight group (p < 0.05). However, 67.3% of patients presented WL and a following nutritional state alteration, with the GI tract cancer presenting a significant difference, 37.4% (p < 0.05), in addition to severe WL (p < 0.000). Patients diagnosed with cancer, especially in the GI tract, and treated with chemotherapy, have higher chances of WL, which triggers a reduction of survival rate, with obesity and age being reliable predictors of a consequent severe WL.