Clinical Nutrition: Effects of oral nutritional supplements on patients at risk of poor nutrition after colorectal cancer surgery

Background and Target European Clinical Nutrition Guidelines recommend that appropriate nutritional support therapies be used for surgical cancer patients who are at risk of malnutrition during and after hospital care.
, however, previous studies on nutritional interventions have focused on patients while they are in hospital.
little evidence to support recommended nutritional interventions for patients discharged from hospital after cancer surgery, especially those undergoing gastrointestinal cancer surgery and at high risk of malnutrition.
to clearly address this problem, this study looked at two different groups of patients who had a high nutritional risk after surgery for gastrointestinal cancer.
study aims to assess the effects of oral nutritional supplements (ONS) after surgery for colorectal cancer on post-hospital patients at nutritional risk.
between January 2017 and June 2019, patients who underwent colorectal cancer surgery were randomly assigned to a normal diet (control group) or a combined ONS diet (ONS group) for three months.
the nutritional risk of patients based on the 2002 Nutrition Risk Screening Tool.
mainly observed the end point for nutritional improvement results and the prevalence of muscle reduction.
end point was 90 days of re-hospitalization, improved chemotherapy tolerance and quality of life (QoL).
the results were 212 out of 232 patients (107 in the control group and 105 in the ONS group) who completed the trial.
average ONS intake per day is 410 mL.
after three months of intervention, the skeletal muscle index of the ONS group was significantly higher than that of the control group (39.75±5.83 vs. 38.01±6.18 cm2/m2, P=0.037), but there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of weight, weight loss, body mass index, serum albumin and hemoglobin (P-gt 0.05).
, the prevalence of muscle reduction in the ONS group decreased significantly (28.6% VS 42.1%, P=0.040).
there was no significant difference in the 90-day re-entry rate between the two groups.
number of patients with both groups of postoperative chemotherapy were similar, however, ONS had no significant effect on QoL.
concluded that in post-hospital patients at risk of nutritional risk after colorectal cancer surgery, onS use reduced skeletal muscle loss and muscle reduction rates and improved chemotherapy tolerance compared to a normal diet.