Malnutrition among gynaecological cancer patients

Objective: To assess the nutritional status of patients with gynaecological cancer. Design: A prospective study assessing the nutritional status of gynaecological patients with suspected or proven gynaecological cancer. Setting: Queensland Centre for Gynaecological Cancer, Brisbane, Australia; a tertiary referral centre for gynaecological cancer. Subjects: One hundred forty-five patients with suspected or proven gynaecological cancer aged 20 - 91 years. Intervention: Scored patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) and serum albumin before treatment. Results: One hundred and sixteen (80%) patients were categorized as PG-GA class A, 29 (20%) patients were PG-SGA B and none of the patients were PG-SGA C. Ovarian cancer patients had significantly lower serum albumin levels (P = 0.003) and higher PG-SGA scores (P < 0.001) than patients with other types of cancer and benign conditions. Sixty-seven per cent of patients with ovarian cancer were classified as PG-SGA B. After adjusting for patient's age, body mass index and albumin level, ovarian cancer patients were 19 times more likely to be categorized as PG-SGA class B compared to patients with benign conditions (95% confidence interval: 3.03 - 129.8; P = 0.002). Conclusion: Malnutrition in gynaecological cancer patients is a significant problem, especially among those patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer.