The Impact of the Nutritional State of Patients on the Results of the Surgical Treatment of Ulcerative Colitis

Abstract

A variety of mechanisms have been proposed to explain the malnutrition and body mass loss in UC patients. The aim of the study trial was a nutritional state assessment of 347 UC patients, admitted for surgical treatment, and the evaluation of the impact of this state on the postoperative course in this group of patients. We referred the results of nutritional state assessment to the length of time of postoperative hospitalization of patients. Through application of the Kruskal-Wallis test we found statistically significant, but weakly expressed, differences between the values of nutritional state parameters and period of hospitalization of patients. The applied U Mann-Whitney test, with statistically significant results with p <0.05, showed statistically significant differences between cured and dead subgroups in: 1) loss of body mass in 6 months before hospitalization (p = 0.000033), 2) hemoglobin level (p = 0.006676), 3) total lymphocyte count (TLC) (p = 0.025242), 4) total serum protein level (p = 0.003485), 5) serum albumin level (p =0.00165). Differences in BMI values were statistically negligible (p = 0.969397). The body mass loss in 6 months before admission, total lymphocyte count and serum albumin level are the reference parameters of the nutritional state of UC patients on admission to surgery.