[The importance of nutrition for cancer patients]

Good nutrition and nutritional therapy are important for cancer patients before, during and after treatment. The goal for the dietary advices and the nutritional therapy is to maintain or improve the nutritional status of the cancer patients. This seems to have beneficial effects on the oncological therapy. To achieve good results by using nutritional therapy in cancer treatment, a close collaboration between nutritionists, doctors and nurses will be important. The National Nutrition Council initiated in 1996 a working group in order to provide recommendations for diet and nutritional therapy in cancer patients. The group performed a literature review and studied the practice of nutritional therapy in Norwegian hospitals using a mailed questionnaire answered by 33 (72%) hospital departments. This paper gives a summary of this work.