Background: Negative consequences nutritional status depletion imposes on clinical progress of cancer patients include increased risk of infection, worsened side effects of treatment and lowered survival rate.
Aim: To identify factors related to nutritional status as determinants of survival of hospitalized women with gynecological tumors.
Methods: 146 women diagnosed with gynecological tumors admitted to a referral oncological hospital during November 2012 were included. Information related to medical history, duration and reason for admission were collected. One year survival data were obtained from institutional databases. Nutritional diagnosis were assessed by Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) as follows: A-well nourished, B-moderately malnourished and C-severely malnourished, beyond the score value that directs the nutritional intervention. Kaplan-Meier survival curve was used to study the survival status, and the log-rank test and Cox proportional hazards model were used to identify the independent factors for survival.
Results: 62.4% of women had some degree of malnutrition (PG-SGA B and C). The median duration days of hospitalization was statistically higher in patients classified as malnourished (p=0,002). The best cutoff score of PG-SGA to predict one year mortality was 10 (AUC= 0,875, CI 95%: 0,816–0,935, p<0,001). Patients with a score above this value were 30.7 times more likely (95% CI: 11.8-79.4) to death. The median survival of patients with PG-SGA A was 334.09 + 11.20 (95% CI 312.13 to 356.04). Patients with PG-SGA B and C had significantly lower median survival: 137.94 + 17.67 (95% CI 103.30 to 172.57) and 113.30 + 27.90 (95% CI 58, 61 to 167.99), respectively (log-rank test, p <0.001). After the Cox regression analysis, severe malnutrition and site tumor in cervix was considered a risk factor for survival.
0>Conclusions: Survival was influenced by nutritional status. PG-SGA is a good parameter for prognostic and may be enough to identify those patients who need nutritional intervention.