Biomedical Research

Purpose: To evaluate the use of the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) and the Nutrition Risk Screening 2002 (NRS 2002) for the assessment of nutritional status in patients with common malignant tumors.

Methods: Patients hospitalized in Huizhou Central People’s Hospital from December 2012 to May 2014 were enrolled. The diagnosis with cancer was confirmed by pathological examination and patients received chemotherapy/radiotherapy or surgery. The patients were interviewed by a trained surgeon using NRS 2002 and PG-SGA. Fasting venous blood samples were taken from all enrolled patients, and serum albumin and prealbumin levels were measured. NRS 2002 score ≥ 3 indicated malnutrition risk, and PG-SGA score ≥ 4 indicated malnutrition. The correlations among the scores, serum albumin and prealbumin levels, the body mass index (BMI), the length of hospital stay, and hospitalization cost were analyzed.

Results: 482 patients participated in this study, 242 (50.2%) had NRS 2002 score ≥ 3 and 359 (74.5%) had PG-SGA score ≥ 4. The detection rate of PG-SGA was significantly higher than that of NRS 2002. In patients with serum albumin <35 g/L and prealbumin <0.2 g/L, the detection rates of NRS 2002 and PG-SGA were 67.8% and 93.4%, and 66.4% and 88.8%, respectively, with significant difference. Both NRS 2002 and PG-SGA scores were associated with albumin, pre-albumin, and BMI (P<0.05).

Conclusions: PG-SGA has greater sensitivity than NRS 2002 in assessing nutritional status for patients with common malignancies and is more appropriate for nutritional assessment of cancer patients.

Author(s): Jiajun Yang, Kaitao Yuan,Yubao Huang, Miao Yu, Xuejun Huang, Chao Chen, Jiyong Fu, Yingying Shi, Hanping Shi
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