Background The published studies show up a high prevalence of malnutrition in oncohaematology patients which can lead both to a worse quality of life, increased treatment toxicity, higher health costs and a decrease in survival.

Purpose We realised that many oncohaematological patients treated with chemotherapy in our hospital were malnourished. Thus, we conducted this study to evaluate their nutritional status, to analyse if it is correlated with the chemoterapy dose reductions and to collect the symptoms reported in the nutritional assessment.

Material and methods Observational and cross-sectional study carried out in a 365-bed second-level hospital, which included patients under CT, diagnosed since at least 3 months of any neoplasia. We collected demographic, anthropometric and analytical data, diagnostics, treatments, dose reduction and symptoms of the patient. Patient Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) was used to evaluate the nutritional status.

Results We included 86 patients (59% females), average age 61±12 years. Concerning this, 59% had good nutritional status, 40%% showed moderate malnutrition or risk of malnutrition. and 1% had severe malnutrition. The treatment was reduced in 28% of patients and 50% of them had moderate malnutrition or risk of malnutrition. The reduced treatments were: 12 patients with analogues of pyrimidine bases with an average reduction of 25% of the dose, 13 with derivatives of platinum (20% reduction), four with taxanes (21.3%), two with analogues of nitrogen mustards (208%), five with camptothecin derivatives (273%), two with anthracyclines (a reduction of 167% and one suspension), six with monoclonal antibodies (24.7%) and one with folic acid analogues (1.5%). The more frequent symptoms were: alteration of daily activity in 55% of patients, feeding difficulties in 55%, variation in intake in 50%, lack of appetite in 29%, unpleasant tastes in 23%, nausea in 13%, constipation in 12%, food without flavour in 11%, unpleasant odours in 9%, indigestion in 9%, vomiting in 8%, diarrhoea in 5% and difficulty in swallowing in 5%.

Conclusion A significant percentage of the patients presented moderate malnutrition or risk of malnutrition. Half of the patients with dose reduction were malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. We observed a high number of symptoms related to nutritional status.

References and/or Acknowledgements ASPEN, ESPEN.

No conflict of interest