Gastrointestinal Changes During Nutritional Follow-Up of Cancer Patients Undergoing Outpatient Chemotherapy

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Cancer patients may have gastrointestinal changes that influence nutritional status. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the occurrence of gastrointestinal changes resulting from outpatient chemotherapy treatment in cancer patients. METHODS: In a retrospective longitudinal study, the nutritional status and chemotherapy gastrointestinal changes (nausea, vomit, diarrhea, constipation, mucositis, dysphagia, xerostomia, inappetence, dysgeusia and heartburn) in cancer patients (n=187) were investigated in an outpatient follow-up. For the study of the parameters over time, the generalized estimating equation (GEE) method was used. Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney tests and Spearman coefficient, at a significance level of 5% were also used. RESULTS: The majority of the patients were female (63.64%) and the mean age was 57.5±12.1 years. The most frequent symptoms were nausea (18.54%); inappetence (18.31%); intestinal constipation (11.58%); diarrhea (7.98%); xerostomia (7.59%) and vomiting (7.43%). The nutritional status did not exhibit any relevant changes (P=0.7594). However, a higher prevalence of eutrophy was observed, followed by overweight; vomiting exhibited a significant difference (P=0.0211). The nausea symptom exhibited a significant difference with a higher prevalence of colorectal neoplasia when compared to breast neoplasia (P=0.0062); as well as vomiting in lung and colorectal neoplasias (P=0.0022), and dysphagia, in head and neck neoplasia, when compared to other neoplasms (P<0.001). There was a statistically significant difference between the number of medical appointments and gender (P=0.0102) and between dysphagia and gender (P<0.0001). CONCLUSION: The study findings enhance the need for signs and symptoms follow up, as well as nutritional status follow up of patients undergoing outpatient chemotherapy.

Distinct Nausea Profiles Are Associated With Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Oncology Patients Receiving Chemotherapy

“…Consistent with a single report, 38 compared with our none class, a higher percentage of patients in the high class reported the occurrence of all of the gastrointestinal symptoms that were evaluated in this study (Table 4). Potential explanations for this very high gastrointestinal symptom burden comes from our previous gene expression studies with the same sample 13,39 .…”

Prevalência de disgeusia e seu impacto no estado nutricional de pacientes submetidos a tratamento oncológico: revisão integrativa da literatura

“…A pesquisa de Marques et al (2021) destaca que 53,3% dos idosos entrevistados (ASG-PPP) demonstraram possuir desnutrição moderada e 4,5% desnutrição grave. Achados semelhantes aos encontrados por outro estudo, em que a avaliação subjetiva global produzida pelo próprio paciente revelou desnutrição moderada ou grave em 43,8%, assim como presença de pelo menos um sintoma de impacto nutricional em 65,7% e necessidade de intervenção nutricional crítica em 47,9% dos idosos (SANTOS et al, 2015).…”

“…Em relação às características gerais das pesquisas incluídas, cinco artigos foram publicados no Brasil, nas respectivas Cidades/Estados: Blumenau-SC (KORMANN; KORZ; ALIGLERI, 2021), Vitória-ES(MARQUES et al, 2021), Campinas-SP(SARAGIOTTO et al, 2020), Belém-PA(MIRANDA et al, 2013) e em Porto Alegre-RS (FERREIRA; GUIMARÃES;MARCADENTI, 2013). O sexto artigo foi publicado na Alemanha(PUGNALONI et al, 2020).…”