A comparison of four common malnutrition risk screening tools for detecting cachexia in patients with curable gastric cancer

• Published in: Nutrition (Burbank, Los Angeles County, Calif.) Vol. 70; p. 110498
• Main Authors: Chen, Xi-Yi, Zhang, Xian-Zhong, Ma, Bing-Wei, Li, Bo, Zhou, Dong-Lei, Liu, Zhong-Chen, Chen, Xiao-Lei, Shen, Xian, Yu, Zhen, Zhuang, Cheng-Le
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.02.2020; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Aged; Anthropometry; Body composition; Body Mass Index; Cachexia; Cachexia - diagnosis; Cachexia - etiology; Cancer; Clinical medicine; Diagnostic systems; Enteral nutrition; Evaluation; Female; Gastrectomy; Gastrectomy - adverse effects; Gastric cancer; Humans; Male; Malnutrition; Malnutrition - diagnosis; Malnutrition - etiology; Mass Screening - methods; Middle Aged; Musculoskeletal system; Nutrition; Nutrition Assessment; Nutrition screening tools; Nutritional Status; Patients; Postoperative Complications - diagnosis; Postoperative Complications - etiology; Prospective Studies; Questionnaires; Reproducibility of Results; Risk; Risk Assessment; Sarcopenia; Statistical analysis; Stomach Neoplasms - complications; Stomach Neoplasms - physiopathology; Stomach Neoplasms - surgery; Cachexia; Malnutrition; Gastric cancer; Nutrition screening tools
• ISSN: 0899-9007; 1873-1244
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nut.2019.04.009

•The Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool, Nutritional Risk Screening 2002, Malnutrition Screening Tool, and Short Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire are common screening tools used in the present study.•Cancer cachexia was highly prevalent among patients with curable gastric cancer.•The Malnutrition Screening Tool had the greatest ability to detect cancer cachexia among these patients. Although there is international consensus regarding the importance of cachexia, no tools exist, to our knowledge, for cachexia screening among patients with cancer. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether patients with cancer and cachexia could be identified using the four most commonly used nutritional screening tools: the Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST), the Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS)-2002, the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST), and the Short Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire (SNAQ). Clinical data were prospectively collected for patients who underwent elective radical gastrectomy for gastric cancer in two large centers between August 2014 and February 2018. Patients were also screened using the MUST, NRS-2002, MST, and SNAQ tools. The screening results were subsequently compared with the international consensus diagnostic criteria for cancer cachexia. A total of 1001 patients were evaluated, including 363 patients (36.3%) with cancer cachexia. Among the patients “at nutritional risk” based on each tool, the proportions of cachexia were 87.3% for the MUST tool, 84.3% for the MST tool, 76.6% for the NRS-2002 tool, and 54.3% for the SNAQ tool. The MST tool provided the largest area under the curve for identifying cancer cachexia (0.914; P < 0.001). Among the tools examined, the MST had the greatest ability to detect cancer cachexia among patients with gastric cancer.