Chemotherapy May Alter Taste Perception, Eating Behavior in Children With Cancer

Children with cancer receiving chemotherapy may experience negative eating behaviors, including alterations in taste, emotional overeating or undereating, food selectivity, and slow eating. These findings were reported in the Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

In this study, researchers assessed eating patterns, nutritional status, and changes in taste perception among children treated for cancer. Children participating in this study were aged 8 to 18 years and were being treated with chemotherapy at a pediatric hematology and oncology clinic at an academic oncology hospital. The patients’ parents were also included in the study, which was conducted via questionnaires. 

One questionnaire, the Child Description Form, included questions on the child’s sociodemographic characteristics, disease characteristics, and nutrition and gastrointestinal symptoms. 

Eating behavior was assessed across several subdimensions of the Children’s Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ). The Taste Alteration Scale for Children Receiving Chemotherapy (TAS-CrC) and the Subjective Total Taste Acuity (STTA) scale were used to assess changes to the child’s sense of taste. 

The study included 80 children, mean age 11.11 years (SD, 2.51 years). Mean age at diagnosis was 9.80 years (SD, 3.09 years), and acute lymphoblastic leukemia was the diagnosis for 50% of the children. Body mass index (BMI) Z scores for most of the children (92.5%) were within the normal range, but BMI Z scores for 7.5% of the children suggested malnutrition. 

Mean scores across the evaluated CEBQ subdimensions suggested that children in this study experienced negative eating behaviors. Additionally, a mean TAS-CrC score of 8.66 (SD, 10.22) also suggested negative eating behaviors, such as emotional over- or undereating, food selectivity, or slow eating. 

Scores on the STTA scale indicated loss of taste acuity varied among the participants: 57.5% maintained their pretreatment taste acuity, 3.8% experienced total or almost total loss of taste acuity, and the remaining patients reported mild to moderate loss of taste acuity.

Moderate negative correlations were reported between the mean TAS-CrC score and the mean food craving score (r, −0.358; P =.001) and mean enjoyment of food score (r, −0.381; P =0.001), both on the CEBQ. The mean TAS-CrC score was reported to show a moderate positive correlation with the mean slow eating score (r, 0.607; P =.000). Correlations also were observed between taste alteration scores and moderate to severe loss of taste acuity.

“Oncology nurses should evaluate their patients’ taste functions before, during, and after treatment and should, as much as possible, apply nursing interventions related to taste disorders,” the study investigators concluded. 

Editor’s note: The commonly used acronym for the Taste Alteration Scale for Children Receiving Chemotherapy is TAC-CrC, whereas the authors of this study used TAC-TAS. The editors replaced TAC-TAS with TAC-CrC in this report for consistency with existing literature.