The diversity of nutritional status in cancer: New insights

Objective. Nutritional status in cancer has been mostly biased toward undernutrition, an issue now in dispute. We aimed to characterize nutrition status, to analyze associations between nutritional and clinical/cancer-related variables, and to quantify the relative weights of nutritional and cancer-related features. Methods. The cross-sectional study included 450 non selected cancer patients (ages 18-95 years) at referral for radiotherapy. Nutritional status assessment included recent weight changes, body mass index (BMI) categorized by World Health Organization's age/sex criteria, and Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA; validated/specific for oncology). Results. BMI identified 63% as >25 kg/m² (43% over-weight, 20% obese) and 4% as under nourished. PG-SGA identified 29% as undernourished and 71% as well nourished. Crossing both methods, among the 319 (71%) well-nourished patients according to PG-SGA, 75% were overweight/obese and only 25% were well nourished according to BMI. Concordance between BMI and PG-SGA was evaluated and consistency was confirmed. More aggressive/advanced stage cancers were more prevalent in deficient and excessive nutritional status: in 83%(n 235/282) of over weight/obese patients by BMI and in 85%(n 111/131) of undernourished patients by PG-SGA. Results required adjustment for diagnoses: greater histological aggressiveness was found in overweight/obese prostate and breast cancer; under nutrition was associated with aggressive lung, colorectal, head-neck, stomach, and esophageal cancers (p <.005). Estimates of effect size revealed that overweight/obesity was associated with advanced stage (24%), aggressive breast (10%), and prostate (9%) cancers, where as under nutrition was associated with more aggressive lung (6%), colorectal (6%), and head-neck (6%) cancers; inboth instances,age and longer disease duration were of significance. Conclusion. Under nutrition and overweight/obesity have distinct implications and bear a negative prognosis in cancer. This study provides novel data on the prevalence of overweight/obesity and under nutrition in cancer patients and their potential role in cancer histological behavior.