Abstract

MOREIRA, A.P. et al. Green line of Nutritional Care”: a nutritional project for continuous improvement of the quality of cancer care. Revista Onconews [online]. 2022, n.45, e080.  Epub Dec 28, 2022. ISSN 1646-7868.  https://doi.org/10.31877/on.2022.45.04.

Malnutrition is a common phenomenon in people with cancer. It can occur at all stages of the disease trajectory and its occurrence can have a significant negative impact on cancer treatment outcomes. With this project: “Via Verde dos Cuidados Nutricionais” (Green Line for Nutritional Care) we intend to assess the nutritional risk of all patients who were admitted to a surgical oncology inpatient service by applying the MUST screening tool (Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool). Depending on the scores obtained, patients are classified into low, medium or high risk of malnutrition. A descriptive longitudinal study was carried out in a public oncology hospital, tracking all patients on admission to the surgical oncology hospital.

A total of 160 patients were admitted, 20 were identified as being at medium risk and 16 patients at high risk, most of them had digestive pathology. The hospitalization had an average duration of 6.9 days, and an average weight loss but the end of 7 days of 1.76kg (t=5.084, p<0.001).

This project emphasizes the need for a structured and coordinated protocol for an early and effective nutritional intervention in cancer patients at medium and high risk of malnutrition. It also alerts to the need for intervention and proactive nutritional surveillance in patients who are not at risk, as this is not synonymous with the absence of potential future risk, particularly in patients with digestive pathology.

Keywords : Malnutrition; Nutrition Assessment; Nutritional Status; Nutritional risk screening; Neoplasms.

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