Risk Factor Assessment of Malnutrition in Head and Neck Cancer Patients of NTUVH
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Chen, Yi-Jiun
Abstract
Nutrition has enormous effect on cancer management and early intervention is indispensable. Patients with head and neck cancer have unique oral feeding problem directly caused by physical obstruction and functional impairment of the tumor. Identifying factors associated with malnutrition, different clinical behavior and final outcome between dogs and cats would help clinicians to identify high-risk individuals, improving clinical treatment response, patient quality of life and ultimately patient survival. Our study objectives is to estimate the percentage and to identify malnutrition risk factors associated with malnutrition in canine and feline head and neck tumor patients attended at Animal Cancer Treatment Center (ACTC) of National Taiwan University Veterinary Hospital. This study is a single-center prospective study. Patient Signalment, tumor staging and feeding strategy were also recorded. Percentage of malnutrition was adjusted for the sampling approach. Chi-square test was used to identify factors associated with malnutrition. Study was conducted between February 2015 and January 2016. Head and neck cancer accounts for 21%(135/641) in all patients attending ACTC, which site is the second most common cancer location. 28/76 (37%) dogs and 24/29 (83%) cats were malnourished at the time of presentation. In dogs, there is strong association with cancer-related malnutrition and tumor stage (P<0.001). But the correlation was absent in cats. The duration of clinical signs prior to diagnostic approach and initial chief complain show strong association in cats (P = 0.001). Dogs have unique high percentage of home made diet feeding (36%) compared to cats (7%). But, compared to other food type, home made diet feeding has high proportion of insufficient calorie intake (P <0.001). Head and neck has higher percentage of cancer-related malnutrition compared to other location.37% Dogs and 83% cats had malnutrition at the time of presentation, which showed significant difference between species. The prevalence of cancer-related malnutrition among cats is high regardless of tumor stage, but is less common in dogs and always limited to higher tumor stage subgroup. Environment has tremendous effect on malnutrition. Homemade food feeding dogs and large family size with ad libitum feeding cats are high-risk population. The knowledge of identified risk factors for cancer-related malnutrition and species differences between dog and cat could help us prevent the occurrence and consider the proper timing and indication of advanced nutritional intervention.
Subjects
nutrition status
malnutrition
head and neck cancer
environment history
homemade food
Type
thesis
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