Nutritional assessment in gynecology patients

A nutritional assessment was performed upon 72 patients admitted for major elective gynecologic surgery for nonmalignant diseases. This nutritional assessment included body weight, triceps skinfold, arm muscle circumference, creatinine-height index, serum albumin and transferrin, total lymphocyte count, and dermal antigen testing. We found that 29 patients (42%) had at least one test result indicating a nutritional deficiency. Of the 72 patients, 19 (26%) experienced a postoperative complication. The occurrence of a complication did not correlate with any nutritional parameter other than albumin (p = 0.013), but even then, the positive predictive value of albumin was only 40%. Age also correlated with complication status (p = 0.002).