title: The efficacy of Nutrition Risk Screening-2002 (NRS-2002) to decide on the nutritional support in general surgery patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Nutritional Risk Screening-2002 (NRS-2002) has been recently used to evaluate the nutritional status of patients according to the recommendation of ESPEN. In this prospective study, we aimed to find the effectiveness of NRS-2002 on preoperative patients who were candidates for elective procedure at a general surgery clinic.
  
  
  METHODS
  The NRS-2002 scores of 698 patients were recorded in first 24 hours subsequent to their admission to hospital. The patients who had NRS-2002 score of 3 or 4 were accepted, and the scores were correlated with their age and clinical diagnosis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The nutritional status was good in 655 (93.9%) patients, and 43 patients (6.1%) were malnourished. A total of 135 patients had malignant disorders, among them 37 had concomitant malnutrition. The rate of malnutrition was 28.1% in patients with malignancy. The latter rate was 1.1% in patients with benign disorders. In patients who had gastrointestinal malignancy, the malnutrition rate was 31% (35/89), and the latter ratio was 6.5% (3/46) in patients who had malignancies arising from other than the gastrointestinal system. The NRS-2002 score was changed significantly according to age and malignancies (p<0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  NRS-2002 can be easily used to evaluate the nutritional status of patients. This system is significant in deciding on nutritional support (Tab. 2, Ref. 12). Full Text (Free, PDF) www.bmj.sk.
authors.affiliation: Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Ist Department of Surgery, Izmir, Turkey. serhatgur@yahoo.com
authors.forename: A Serhat
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Gur
authors.forename: Kemal
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Atahan
authors.forename: Isil
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Aladag
authors.forename: Evren
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Durak
authors.forename: Atilla
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cokmez
authors.forename: Ercument
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Tarcan
authors.forename: Cengiz
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tavusbay
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D044342:Malnutrition / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D018529:Nutritional Support; D011300:Preoperative Care; D018570:Risk Assessment; D055815:Young Adult