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  • Original Article
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Malnutrition among gynaecological cancer patients

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 61, pages 642–646 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective:

To assess the nutritional status of patients with gynaecological cancer.

Design:

A prospective study assessing the nutritional status of gynaecological patients with suspected or proven gynaecological cancer.

Setting:

Queensland Centre for Gynaecological Cancer, Brisbane, Australia; a tertiary referral centre for gynaecological cancer.

Subjects:

One hundred forty-five patients with suspected or proven gynaecological cancer aged 20–91 years.

Intervention:

Scored patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) and serum albumin before treatment.

Results:

One hundred and sixteen (80%) patients were categorized as PG-SGA class A, 29 (20%) patients were PG-SGA B and none of the patients were PG-SGA C. Ovarian cancer patients had significantly lower serum albumin levels (P=0.003) and higher PG-SGA scores (P<0.001) than patients with other types of cancer and benign conditions. Sixty-seven per cent of patients with ovarian cancer were classified as PG-SGA B. After adjusting for patient's age, body mass index and albumin level, ovarian cancer patients were 19 times more likely to be categorized as PG-SGA class B compared to patients with benign conditions (95% confidence interval: 3.03–129.8; P=0.002).

Conclusion:

Malnutrition in gynaecological cancer patients is a significant problem, especially among those patients diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Queensland Centre for Gynaecological Cancer, The Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia

    B Laky & A Obermair

  2. Queensland Cancer Fund, Spring Hill, QLD, Australia

    M Janda

  3. The Wesley Research Institute, Brisbane, Australia

    J Bauer

  4. University Hospital, School of Medicine, Vienna, Austria

    C Vavra

  5. The Children's Nutrition Research Centre, Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia

    G Cleghorn

Authors
  1. B Laky
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  2. M Janda
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  3. J Bauer
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  4. C Vavra
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  5. G Cleghorn
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  6. A Obermair
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A Obermair.

Additional information

Guarantor: A Obermair.

Contributors: The authors have contributed to the paper by initiating the study (AO), collecting data (BL), analysing data (AO, MJ, BL), supervising the project (AO, GC), writing the paper (AO, MJ, BL) and revision of the paper (all contributors).

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Laky, B., Janda, M., Bauer, J. et al. Malnutrition among gynaecological cancer patients. Eur J Clin Nutr 61, 642–646 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602540

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