High-protein compared with standard parenteral nutrition in palliative cancer care

High-protein parenteral nutrition (PN) has been developed to counteract muscle loss in patients with cancer treated with PN. Nevertheless, it is not clear if high-protein PN is as safe as standard PN in patients with palliative cancer. Our primary aim was to compare the proportion of patients with elevated liver enzymes between high-protein and standard PN in patients with palliative cancer enrolled to Medical Home Care. Our secondary aim was to compare the two treatments with regard to weight and albumin levels during treatment.

Medical records from 2016 to 2018 were retrospectively reviewed to identify palliative cancer patients that had received PN for more than 3 weeks. Data on weight, height, albumin, liver enzymes, socioeconomic factors and dietitian consultations were collected at baseline and after 3-8 weeks of PN treatment. The odds of having elevated liver enzymes or having a maintained weight and/or stable albumin levels were calculated using logistic regression.

20 patients treated with high-protein PN were compared with 104 patients treated with standard PN. Patients treated with high-protein PN had a significantly higher weight at follow-up compared with patients treated with standard PN (p<0.05). There was no significant difference in the proportion of patients with elevated liver enzymes (OR 0.20; 95% CI 0.02 to 1.86), or maintained weight and/or albumin levels (OR 1.62; 95% CI 0.46 to 5.76) between high-protein and standard PN.

High-protein PN was as safe, and at least as effective, as standard PN to patients with palliative cancer.