Patients with operable pancreatic cancer should have their nutritional status assessed prior to surgery, with interventions to manage symptom clusters that address nutrition, insomnia, and pain as needed to improve anorexia-cachexia-related quality of life (QOL), according to results from a recent study published in European Journal of Oncology Nursing.

Pancreatic cancer is highly aggressive, and pancreatectomy is the primary curative therapy for patients with the disease. Nonetheless, the procedure has a high risk of complications, and both the cancer and its treatment can cause nutritional impairments and multiple other symptoms. The goal of this research was to evaluate the differences in malnutrition status, severity of symptoms, and anorexia-cachexia-related QOL prior to and following pancreatic surgery in patients with operable pancreatic cancer.

The Mini Nutritional Assessment, Symptom Severity Scale, and Functional Assessment of Anorexia-Cachexia Therapy scale were used across 76 patients with pancreatic cancer scheduled to undergo surgery from a medical center in northern Taiwan to evaluate nutritional status, severity of symptoms, and anorexia-cachexia QOL. Researchers used bioelectrical impedance analysis via the X-scan Plus II to measure body composition.

Average age of patients was 59.9 years, and the average length of hospital stay was 24.3 days. More than half (51.3%) of patients were male, and 51.3% had stage II pancreatic cancer at diagnosis. The overwhelming majority (89.5%) experienced a minor complication.

Prior to surgery, 42.1% of patients experienced malnutrition or were at risk of malnutrition. Preoperative malnutrition (β, −3.857; P =.001), higher early satiety (β, −0.629; P =.005), insomnia (β, −0.452; P =.025), and pain (β, −0.779; P <.001) were all correlated with lower anorexia-cachexia-related QOL.

Nutritional Status, Symptom Severity Affect Quality of Life in Operable Pancreatic Cancer

Want to read more?

Want to read more?