The efficacy of Nutrition Risk Screening-2002 (NRS-2002) to decide on the nutritional support in general surgery patients.
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.
Gur
A Serhat
AS
Ataturk Training and Research Hospital, Ist Department of Surgery, Izmir, Turkey. serhatgur@yahoo.com
Atahan
Kemal
K
Aladag
Isil
I
Durak
Evren
E
Cokmez
Atilla
A
Tarcan
Ercument
E
Tavusbay
Cengiz
C
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