title: Prognostic ability of nutritional assessment methods in surgical cancer patients.
abstract: To identify patients at high-risk for post-operative infections, several methods have been proposed, including prognostic nutritional index (PNI), instant nutritional assessment (INA) and nutritional assessment (NA). Weight loss (WL) has also been related to post-operative morbidity. We have evaluated the prognostic ability of PNI, INA, NA and WL in a prospective study carried out in 94 patients affected by gastro-intestinal malignancy, who underwent major surgery. Post-operative infections occurred in 26 (27.7%) patients. PNI, INA and NA identified classes of patients with a progressive risk of septic complications. To determine the prognostic ability of PNI, INA, NA and WL, sensitivity, specificity, Youden index and predictive values were evaluated. All methods had a Youden index greater than one, with a positive predictive value ranging from 0.33 to 0.36. Since all the methods studied showed a similar predictive ability, it seems reasonable to identify the high-risk surgical patient by using weight loss in association with those nutritional parameters derived from routine hospital laboratory tests.
authors.affiliation: Scientific Institute San Raffaele Hospital, Cattedra Patologia Chirurgica-University of Milan, Via Olgettina 60, 20132 Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Braga
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Baccari
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Radaelli
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: DiCarlo
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gianotti
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cristallo