Validity of the GLIM criteria for the diagnosis of malnutrition in patients with colorectal cancer: A multicenter study on the diagnostic performance of different indicators of reduced muscle mass and disease severity.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the concurrent and predictive validity of different combinations of Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria in patients with colorectal cancer considering different indicators of reduced muscle mass (MM) and the effects of the disease. METHODS: A secondary analysis with patients with colorectal cancer. The reduced MM was assessed by arm muscle area, arm muscle circumference, calf circumference, fat-free mass index, skeletal muscle index (SMI) and skeletal muscle. Cancer diagnosis or disease staging (TNM) was considered for the etiologic criterion referred to as the effect of the disease. The other phenotypic and etiologic criteria were also evaluated, and we analyzed 13 GLIM combinations. Concurrent validity between GLIM criteria and Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment was evaluated. Logistic and Cox regression were used in the predictive validation. RESULTS: For concurrent validity (n = 208), most GLIM combinations (n = 6; 54.5%) presented a moderate agreement with Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment and none showed satisfactory sensitivity and specificity (>80%). Reduced MM evaluated by SMI and SMI were present in the GLIM combinations associated with postoperative complications (odds ratio, ≥2.0), independent of other phenotypic and etiologic criteria. The combinations with reduced MM considering any method and fixed phenotypic criteria and TNM were associated with mortality (hazard ratio, ≥2.0). CONCLUSIONS: Satisfactory concurrent validity was not verified. The GLIM diagnosis of malnutrition was associated with postoperative complications and mortality.

Exploring the use of the GLIM criteria to diagnose malnutrition in cancer inpatients.

OBJECTIVES: The Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria establish a diagnosis of malnutrition based on the presence of at least one phenotypic and one etiologic criterion. This study aimed to assess the concurrent and predictive validity of the GLIM criteria in hospitalized cancer patients. METHODS: This is an observational retrospective study, including 885 cancer patients, ages >18 y, admitted to a medical oncology inpatient unit between 2019 and 2020. All patients at risk for malnutrition according to the Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 score were assessed by the subjective global assessment (SGA) and 14 different combinations of the GLIM criteria. The SGA was considered the gold standard for assessing the concurrent validity of the GLIM combinations. For a subsample of patients with data available on inflammatory markers (n = 198), the serum albumin and C-reactive protein were included in the combinations as etiologic criteria. The predictive validity of the different combinations was tested using the occurrence of surgical complications as the clinical outcome. The sensitivity and specificity values were calculated to assess the concurrent validity, univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to test predictive validity. Adequate concurrent and predictive validity were determined as sensitivity and specificity values >80% and odds ratio values ≥2.0, respectively. RESULTS: The median age of the patients was 61.0 y (interquartile range = 51.0-70.0). Head and neck cancer was the prevailing diagnosis and 375 patients were at nutritional risk. According to the SGA, 173 (26.1%) patients were malnourished (SGA categories B or C) and the prevalence of malnutrition ranged from 3.9% to 30.0%, according to the GLIM combinations. None of the tested combinations reached adequate concurrent validity; however, the presence of malnutrition according to four combinations independently predicted surgical complications. CONCLUSIONS: The predictive validity of the GLIM was satisfactory in surgical cancer patients.

Energy Expenditure and Liver Transplantation: What We Know and Where We Are.

Patients with end-stage liver disease (ESLD) and undergoing liver transplantation (LTx) commonly present with malnutrition attributed to various etiologies. One of the causes is potential hypermetabolism resulting from increased resting energy expenditure (REE). After the surgery, it is hypothesized that these patients show a reduction in REE, which may contribute to the weight gain observed in this population. However, there have been controversial results regarding the metabolic status of ESLD patients and liver recipients, which has led us to critically review the pertinent literature. We enrolled studies with the following goals: assessment of REE of these patients either before or after surgery by using indirect calorimetry (measured REE [mREE]) and comparison of these mREE values with those of healthy controls or with REE values obtained using predictive equations (predicted REE [pREE]). For most patients, mREE and pREE values were comparable. However, ≥5.3% of patients exhibited hypermetabolism when the mREE was compared with the pREE using the Harris-Benedict formula. Three follow-up studies that were conducted postsurgery showed a progressive reduction in the mREE for ≤1 year. However, conflicting data have been published, and cross-sectional studies have not reported hypometabolic patients. In conclusion, there is no consensus regarding the metabolic status of pre-LTx and post-LTx patients, which may be due to differences in the methods used for comparison. Therefore, we highlight this aspect of LTx patient management, which impacts the quality of nutrition therapy required by these patients.