Application of Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition criteria in the diagnosis of malnutrition in gastric cancer patients / 中华临床营养杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To retrospectively investigate the incidence of malnutrition in patients with gastric cancer in China, and to explore the applicability of Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) diagnostic criteria.Methods:Data were extracted from National Multi-center Investigation and Study on Dynamic Changes of Nutritional Status of Inpatients database led by Geriatric Nutrition Support Group of the Chinese Society of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. A retrospective analysis in patients with gastric cancer was conducted. Involuntary weight loss, low body mass index (BMI) and muscle mass loss were adopted as phenotypic indicators in GLIM criteria for malnutrition diagnosis and the application of GLIM criteria for malnutrition diagnosis in patients with gastric cancer was evaluated.Results:In a total of 563 gastric cancer patients, 203 cases were diagnosed with malnutrition per GLIM criteria and 193 cases without malnutrition were identified as control using 11 propensity score matching. There were significant differences in body weight, BMI, right calf circumference, right hand grip strength, total cholesterol, hemoglobin, albumin and total protein between malnutrition group and non-malnutrition group ( P < 0.05). After muscle mass loss was removed from the phenotype indicators in GLIM criteria, the hospitalization duration in patients with malnutrition was (16.15±7.04) days compared with (14.28±6.70) days in patients without malnutrition, demonstrating statistically significant difference ( χ2= 0.442, P = 0.007). Conclusions:Gastric cancer patients showed high incidence of malnutrition. The cut-off value of calf circumference reported in foreign populations may be unsuitable to apply in Chinese population. Further clinical researches are needed to determine the optimal cut-off calf circumference value for Chinese individuals.