Nutritional assessment of cancer patients by PG-SGA questionnaire in Cancer Research Center (CRC) of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, 2010

Weight loss and malnutrition are common among cancer patients. These two factors highly affect their survival and quality of life during treatment. Since cancer is becoming increasingly common in the world and in order to provide better treatment measures, it is important to identify and prevent its side effects. The present study has been conducted in 2010 on a sample of cancer patients in the Oncology Center of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences to determine the prevalence rates and factors associated with malnutrition. The PG-SGA standard questionnaire was administered to 416 cancer patients to evaluate their nutrition status. The frequency of each malnutrition stage was determined. Correlations and ANOVA tests were used to analyze the relationship between factors predisposing to weight loss. The prevalence of malnutrition among the patients was 53.1%; out of which 29.1% had moderate and 24% had severe malnutrition. The most common factors inducing nutritional symptoms were depression and anorexia; 35% of the patients had >5% weight loss in the last 1 mouth. The average PG-SGA score was 10.11 with 49 being the highest score. 46.1 percent of the patients scored over 9 (requiring critical nutrient intervention). Malnutrition has a high correlation with weight loss, limitation of activities, nutritional symptoms, and the cancer stage, but it has a low correlation with treatment and the pathologic type. Malnutrition has a high prevalence in Iranian cancer patients and has a close relationship with mortality, morbidity and treatment-related problems and also quality of life, so periodical assessments by PG-SGA are necessary to detect malnutrition in patients and provide appropriate nutritional intervention.