Nutritional Profile of Cancer Patients Assisted by the House of Support for Cancer Patients from the Southwest of Bahia

Abstract

Introduction: Cancer is a chronic non-communicable disease that causes, each year, seven million deaths worldwide. The nutritional assessment of patients with cancer is of great importance, given the magnitude of nutritional problems that this disease can cause, interfering so strikingly in the prognosis of the disease. Objective: To evaluate the nutritional status of cancer patients assisted by the House of Cancer Patient of the Southwest of Bahia, relating it to the type of neoplasm. Method: This is a cross-sectional study, carried out with 101 patients, in in which their nutritional status was evaluated by using the anthropometric, subjective, dietary and laboratory methods. Results: Anthropometric measurements suggest that, at least, 1 out of 5 patients showed some degree of malnutrition, while symptoms related to illness and / or treatment enframed 42.6% of patients to the class of moderately malnourished according to the Subjective Global Assessment Produced by Patient. The malnutrition was mainly present in patients with tumors of the esophagus, head and neck, and lung, while the dietary assessment revealed that more than half of respondents consumed animal products, fats and sugars on a daily basis and vegetables on a weekly basis, before the discovery of the disease. Low serum levels of hemoglobin, iron, albumin and lymphocytes were found mainly. Conclusion: The survey results show that the patients had various degrees of nutritional deficiency, and, thus, it is proposed that more attention must be devoted to the nutritional status of the patient with cancer, so that deficits could be corrected earlyand complications of the patient’s condition can be avoided.