Prevalence of nutritional risk evaluated with NRS-2002 in Mexican oncology population

Abstract

Hospitalized patients have high risk of malnutrition, specially those with cancer. There are some screening tools that lead to the detection of malnutrition in hospitalized patients, as Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 (NRS-2002), which we used in Mexican population with cancer at the moment of hospital admission to determine the prevalence of malnutrition risk, and to determine as well as the best predictive item to measuring nutritional risk in our population. Nutritional status in cancer patients with NRS 2002 during hospital admission was assessed. To the analysis of variable non statistical parametric tests, student-t test, Pearson and Spearman test, as well as ANOVA test were used. To determine the best item for predicting nutritional risk in Mexican population with cancer, a logistic regression test was applied. Of our population, 50.2% of were classified as patients in nutritional risk at hospital admission. Gender, age, normal levels of IMC lower than 20.5, food intake, weight loss and hematological cancer were associated with nutritional risk (p < 0.05). The best model of logistic regression for predicting nutritional risk were the same used by NRS-2002 questionnaire (p < 0.05). Malnutrition prevalence is high in cancer patients and NRS-2002 is a reliable tool for predicting nutritional risk in Mexican population with cancer.