title: Nutritional risk and anthropometric evaluation in pediatric liver transplantation.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To analyze the nutritional status of pediatric patients after orthotopic liver transplantation and the relationship with short-term clinical outcome.
  
  
  METHODS
  Anthropometric evaluations of 60 children and adolescents after orthotopic liver transplantation, during the first 24 hours in a tertiary pediatric intensive care unit. Nutritional status was determined from the Z score for the following indices: weight/age height/age or length/age, weight/height or weight/length, body mass index/age, arm circumference/age and triceps skinfold/age. The severity of liver disease was evaluated using one of the two models which was adequated to the patients' age: 1. Pediatric End-stage Liver Disease, 2. Model for End-Stage Liver Disease.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We found 50.0% undernutrition by height/age; 27.3% by weight/age; 11.1% by weight/height or weight/ length; 10.0% by body mass index/age; 61.6% by arm circumference/age and 51.0% by triceps skinfold/age. There was no correlation between nutritional status and Pediatric End-stage Liver Disease or mortality. We found a negative correlation between arm circumference/age and length of hospitalization.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Children with chronic liver diseases experience a significant degree of undernutrition, which makes nutritional support an important aspect of therapy. Despite the difficulties in assessment, anthropometric evaluation of the upper limbs is useful to evaluate nutritional status of children before or after liver transplantation.
authors.affiliation: Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto da Criança, São Paulo/SP, Brazil. patrícia.zamberlan@icr.usp.br
authors.forename: Patrícia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zamberlan
authors.forename: Cláudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Leone
authors.forename: Uenis
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Tannuri
authors.forename: Werther Brunow de
authors.initials: WB
authors.lastname: Carvalho
authors.forename: Artur Figueiredo
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Delgado
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000886:Anthropometry / Q000379:methods; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015278:Intensive Care Units, Pediatric; D007902:Length of Stay / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016031:Liver Transplantation / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D044342:Malnutrition / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality; D015596:Nutrition Assessment; D009752:Nutritional Status; D055815:Young Adult