Malnutrition associated with head and neck cancers

Cancerous patients, under the chemotherapy or radiotherapy, are at high risk of malnutrition due to the associated complications with the treatment procedures such as chewing problems, dysphagia, nausea etc. Considering the patients’ history of alcohol consumption, smoking or any other diseases and performing several physical examinations are essential in early identification of high-risk patients for nutritional complications, losing unintentional weight and fat free mass. In this review, we tried to briefly explain the risk of malnutrition in patients with head and neck cancers who are undergoing surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Oral nutrition, nasogastric tube and percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy are different methods of nutritional interventions, which have been compared due to their efficacy in maintaining the patients’ weight. In this study, we reviewed the results obtained in clinical trials about the efficacy of intense nutritional intervention on limiting the chemoradiotherapy-associated complications in patients with head and neck cancers.