Nutritional Status Parameters as Risk Factors for Mortality in Cancer Patients

The aim of this study was to verify the relationship between weight loss, handgrip strength (HGS) and phase angle (PA) before the beginning of chemotherapy with overall survival in cancer patients. Patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal and breast cancer who were over 18 years old and were scheduled to undergo adjuvant treatment at Hospital Borges da Costa/Brazil were evaluated. The exclusion criteria were neoadjuvant treatment, patients with kidney and liver disease and using diuretics. Weight, HGS and PA tests were performed by trained dietitians. The Kaplan-Meier survival method and the log-rank test, cox regression and ROC curve were used and p < 0.05 was considered significant. Two-hundred and twenty-eight patients were evaluated.The median survival time was higher among the patients who showed weight loss of less than 10% of usual body weight (p < 0.05). Regarding HGS, patients with decreased HGS had a 22.0 month survival versus 34.2 months for those with normal values (p < 0.05). 146 patients had normal PA values, and these patients had increased survival time compared to those with inappropriate values (p < 0.05). In the Cox regression, weight loss and PA were predictors of mortality, HGS wasn't significantly associated with mortality. ROC analysis revealed that weight loss was the nutritional status parameter with the most predictive power.