Prevalence of Malnutrition among Cancer Patients in a Nigerian Institution

Background : Cancer is a major health problem. Successful management includes adequate supportive care. Nutritional problems are common among cancer patients and these are not routinely addressed by oncologists during oncology care leading to suboptimal outcome even in developed countries. In Nigeria and other low and medium income countries, the situation is worse as nutritional screening and assessment of cancer patients are not routinely carried out. Objectives : To determine the proportion of cancer patients at risk of malnutrition and compare convergence of risk assessment using SGA and MUST tools. Methods : This was a prospective study carried out among cancer patients who presented for cancer care in the Department of Radiation Oncology, University College Hospital Ibadan, Nigeria. Nutritional assessment tools which included Malnutrition Universal Scoring Tool (MUST) and Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) were used to assess the nutritional status of the participants. Results : A total of 89 patients aged between 18 and 85 years participated in the study. The number of males were 13 (15%) while females were 76(85%). In our study 54 (60.8%) of our patients were at risk of malnutrition using the malnutrition universal scoring tool (MUST) scale while 53(60%) were malnourished using the subjective global assessment (SGA) scale. The reliability for the classifications using the MUST and SGA scales was positive (moderate) [Kappa = 0.584 (p<0.0005), 95% CI (0.410, 0.758)]. Conclusion : There is a high proportion of clinical malnutrition among cancer patients in the study population. According to this study, there was similarity between the classifications of nutritional risk, using the MUST and SGA tools.