[Nutritional risk assessment in patients with chronic liver disease]

To use the European Nutritional Risk Screening (NRS)-2002 survey tool to investigate nutritional risk associated to different degrees of liver disease and to assess its ability to identify the nutritional risk of hospitalized patients with chronic liver disease.

A total of 366 hospitalized patients were assessed with the NRS-2002 on the day of admission. Patients who meet the criteria for malnourishment (NRS-2002 score of more than 3 points (severely impaired nutritional status with body mass index (BMI) less than 18.5 kg/m2) were selected for further study to determine liver function. Patients were classified according to liver dysfunction-related features, including cirrhosis status, Child-Pugh classification, and underlying disease causes (e.g.alcohol, hepatitis virus infection). Chi square test was used in statistical analysis of inter-group difference.

The incidence of patients surveyed who were at nutritional risk was 41.0%, and the incidence of malnutrition was 7.6%. The patients with liver failure showed the highest rate of nutritional risk (72.8%). Moreover, among the 97 patients with liver cirrhosis, significantly more had Child-Pugh grade B than grade A (88.6% vs.33.1%; x2=24.019, P=0.000). The cause of liver failure with the highest incidence of nutritional risk was alcohol-related liver disease (66.7%). The overall malnutrition rate among the total 156 patients classified by the NRS-2002 as being at nutritional risk was 76.2%.

The NRS-2002 is a suitable screening tool for use in Chinese patients with mild early liver disease, but it must be interpreted carefully as its findings alone may promote a false positive rate. The NRS-2002 is less accurate in patients with end-stage liver disease.