Nutritional support in oncologic patients: where we are and where we are going

The use of nutritional support in cancer patients has evolved since its introduction in the clinical practice 40 years ago. Both parenteral and enteral nutrition are now increasingly integrated within the main oncologic strategy with the aim of making surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy more safe and effective. This requires a better awareness of the inherent risk of starvation and undernutrition by the surgeons, medical oncologists and radiologists, the ability to implement a policy of nutritional screening of cancer patients and to propose them the nutritional support in a single bundle together with the oncologic drugs. Four different areas of nutritional intervention are now recognized which parallel the evolutionary trajectory of patients with tumour: the perioperative nutrition in surgical patients, the permissive nutrition in patients receiving chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy and the home parenteral nutrition which may be total (in aphagic-obstructed-incurable patients) or supplemental (in advanced weight-losing anorectic patients). Since cancer is a common disease and the continuous progress in medical therapy is changing its natural history, with more and more patients entering in a chronic and finally incurable phase where nutrition is determinant for survival, we can expect an increased demand for nutritional support in the next future.