Subjective Global Assessment as a Pre-Operative Nutrition Status Screening Tool for Head and Neck Cancer Patients of a Tertiary Health Care Setting

Abstract

Introduction: In India, 57% of patients with head and neck cancers are documented with nutritional compromise. Active nutritional support has been shown to improve outcomes and reduce the cost of treatment in severely malnourished patients. The assessment of nutritional status should be a priority when initiating medical nutrition therapy. We evaluated the agreement between Subjective and Objective evaluation of pre-operative nutrition status of head and neck cancer patients in a tertiary cancer centre. Methods: Two hundred and thirty seven head and neck cancer patients who underwent surgery were eligible. The patients included both males (147) and females (90) with age varying between 23 - 88 years. All patients were screened for pre-operative nutrition status objectively as well as subjectively. The association of pre-operative SGA scores (A, B and C) subjectively, and PNS score (0, 1, 2) objectively were tested for statistical significance. Results: The cancer sites included tongue in 82, buccal mucosa in 30, thyroid in 28, alveolus in 18, glottis in 10, RMT in 10, nasal cavity in 9, FOM in 8. The pre-operative nutrition status based on subjective scores are A in 156 (65.8%), B in 75 (32%) and C in 6 (2.5%). The objective parameters obtained on the basis of BMI, % weight loss, PNI and S. albumin values are PNS 0 in 161 (67.9%), PNS 1 in 71 (30%) and PNS 2 in 5 (2.1%) patients. As the kappa coefficient p-0.56, there is moderate agreement between the pre-operative nutrition status subjectively as well as objectively. Conclusion: Subjective global assessment is a simple and inexpensive way to screen the pre-operative nutrition status when compared to the other objective assessment tool. SGA has moderate agreement with expensive and complicated objective assessment tools. So it can be a reliable tool for assessing the pre-operative nutrition status.