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Nutritional status and primary tumour site in incurable cancer
  1. Livia Costa De Oliveira,
  2. Emanuelly Varea Maria Wiegert,
  3. Lara Azevedo dos Santos and
  4. Larissa Calixto-Lima
  1. Palliative Care Unit, José Alencar Gomes da Silva National Cancer Institute (INCA), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
  1. Correspondence to Dr Livia Costa De Oliveira, Palliative Care Unit, National Cancer Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; lillycostaoliveira{at}gmail.com

Abstract

Objectives We aimed (1) to assess the nutritional status (NS) using different methods, according to the primary tumour site and (2) to evaluate the performance of these methods in patients with incurable cancer from a reference centre in Brazil.

Methods Cross-sectional analysis of data from patients admitted to the palliative care unit of a reference cancer centre in Brazil, between July 2016 and March 2020. The primary tumour site was the independent variable and the NS using different methods were the dependent variables. Logistic regressions were performed.

Results A total of 2,144 patients were included in the study. The most common primary tumour site was the upper gastrointestinal (GI) tract (18.0%), followed by gynaecological (17.6%) and head and neck (HN) (13.5%). Our results showed that patients with tumours of the upper GI tract followed by HN presented significantly higher risk of worse NS. In contrast, breast tumours, bone and connective tissues and melanoma presented inverse association. The gynaecological cancer was variably associated with nutritional impairment, according to the assessment method.

Conclusions Patients with incurable cancer present high prevalence of NS impairment, depending on the tumour site, shown to be elevated in patients with tumour in the upper GI tract.

  • cancer
  • clinical assessment
  • complementary therapy
  • supportive care
  • cachexia

Data availability statement

Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Not applicable.

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Data availability statement

Data may be obtained from a third party and are not publicly available. Not applicable.

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Footnotes

  • Contributors LCDO: conceptualisation; formal analysis; methodology; project administration; resources; visualisation; roles/writing—original draft; writing—review and editing; responsible for the overall content as guarantor. EVMW: conceptualisation; data curation; investigation; methodology; project administration; supervision; visualisation; writing—review and editing. LAdS: formal analysis; methodology; resources; software; visualisation; roles/writing—original draft; writing—review and editing. LC-L: conceptualisation; investigation; formal analysis; methodology; project administration; resources; supervision; roles/writing—original draft; writing—review and editing.

  • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.