Prognostic value of nutritional and functional screening instruments for mortality in patients with hematologic...

Functional and nutritional impairments adversely affect outcomes in hematologic malignancies; however, the comparative prognostic value of widely available screening instruments remains insufficiently explored. The present study aimed to examine the association between nutritional and functional screening instruments and 12-month mortality in hospitalized patients with hematologic malignancies.

In this prospective cohort of 91 patients (median age 53 years [IQR, 35-61]), nutritional screening and assessment tools (PG-SGA, GLIM criteria) and functional screening instruments (SARC-F, SARC-CalF, and Geriatric 8 [G8]) were applied within 72 h of admission. The G8 was pragmatically used as a multidimensional vulnerability screening instrument. Discriminative ability for mortality was evaluated using ROC curve analysis, and Cox regression models (unadjusted and adjusted) were used to examine associations with mortality.

During follow-up, 29.7% of patients died. The G8 and SARC-CalF were associated with mortality in adjusted models (HR 4.83, 95% CI 1.13-20.68; HR 2.37, 95% CI 1.08-5.17, respectively). PG-SGA Global showed acceptable discriminative performance in ROC analyses (AUC 0.71) but was not associated with mortality after adjustment. GLIM criteria were not associated with mortality in adjusted models.

The G8 and SARC-CalF scores have demonstrated prognostic utility as simple and low-cost screening tools associated with mortality in these patients with hematological malignancies hospitalized in a resource-limited service.