Abstract
This overview aims to create an understanding of the nutritional issues concerning patients with cancer and provide evidence-based practical guidance to healthcare professionals (physicians, nurses, and dietitians), caregivers, and all others involved in the care of patients with cancer. The focus of this paper is therefore on providing a simple guide for daily clinical practice. The theoretical background and in-depth comprehensive reviews of malnutrition are described elsewhere. Nutrition plays a crucial role in cancer care. It affects treatment tolerability, outcomes, and quality of life. However, a focus on nutrition is still lacking among oncologists because of insufficient training in nutrition topics received during graduate and postgraduate training and an underestimation of its importance. The consequences of the disease and its treatment, such as anorexia-sarcopenia-cachexia, are therefore still often overlooked, underdiagnosed, and undertreated. The authors have summarized the most important challenges, evidence-based recommendations, and common clinical scenarios to bridge the gap between comprehensive guidelines and clinical practice, where brief concrete advice is preferred to systematic reviews. Furthermore, an easy applicable overview is provided, which can be used as a guide during daily routines.
Highlights
Malignant disorders are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide.[1,2,3] The incidence and prevalence of cancer cases are expected to increase in the coming decades along with the aging of the population.[1,2,3]Major improvements in cancer treatment have been achieved over the past 20 years because of multimodal therapies, resulting in improved rates of cure and prolonged survival in the palliative setting.[3,4] Based on the facts mentioned above, it is anticipated that healthcare systems worldwide will face a significant increase in the number of patients, especially older patients
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This overview aims to create an understanding of the nutritional issues concerning patients with cancer and provide evidence-based practical guidance to healthcare professionals, caregivers, and all others involved in the care of patients with cancer
Summary
Nutrition in Cancer Care: A Brief, Practical Guide With a Focus on Clinical Practice. SUMMARY ANSWER: Nutrition plays a crucial role for patients with cancer; nutritional problems are often underprioritized, underdiagnosed, and undertreated, thereby affecting treatment outcomes and quality of life. The authors provide an evidencebased guidance focusing exclusively on the practical aspects of nutrition in oncology, which will hopefully help healthcare professionals improve patient care (Fig). WHAT WE DID: We summarized the clinical aspects of the available evidence-based guidelines and turned them into a practical approach that may be used by healthcare professionals. WHAT WE FOUND: If healthcare providers are aware of nutritional issues, the prevention, delay, treatment, or even reversal of sarcopenia may be feasible. REAL-LIFE IMPLICATIONS: Prevention, early identification of patients at risk, accurate diagnosis, personalized intervention, and follow-up are cornerstones of the management of malnutrition and its consequences: sarcopenia and cachexia
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