Preoperative nutritional status and prognostic nutritional index in patients with benign disease undergoing abdominal...

Part II of this study was undertaken to develop a prognostic nutritional index for the identification of high risk patients with benign disease undergoing abdominal operations at the Universitas Hospital in Bloemfontein.

To accomplish this goal, 52 consecutive adult non-cancer surgical patients, admitted to the Universitas Hospital for a period of one year, were studied prospectively. The postoperative outcome was monitored until discharge or death. Various discriminant analyses were performed on the obtained data. Four prognostic indexes were compiled, including two nutritional and two mixed models. A short and medium length index were derived for both the nutritional and the mixed models.

The results suggest that the short nutritional index may be the most practical for the prediction of surgical outcome in this specific set of patients. The short nutritional index included diet risk, serum albumin, body mass index, % ideal body weight, triceps skinfold and grip strength. It is further suggested that these indices be tested in another set of patients and be compared with other available prognostic models.