According to figures from the University Hospital of the Autonomous University of Nuevo LeonIn 2020, about 50 percent of the cancer patients who were under treatment presented malnutrition.
The above data emerged after a clinical review carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic, which led the HU specialists to strengthen the area of nutrition in cancer patients.
For this reason, for two years, the University Hospital “Dr. José Eleuterio González” strengthened the Nutrition Program of the University Center Against Cancer of the UANL.
The program has existed for approximately five years, but in the oncology part, we gave it more formality in 2020. It is aimed at patients with recent diagnosis, in active treatment and even after diagnosis.”
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The creation of this program also arises because in Mexico there are no various cancer centers that provide multidisciplinary care in addition to the area of nutrition.
Among the tasks carried out in this area is performing nutritional screening on patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy to diagnose the state of malnutrition.
Once evaluated, patients are referred to the HU Nutrition Program to provide them with an individualized intervention to seek to optimize their health status for when they receive their cancer treatment.
When the patient already has the nutritional intervention, the change is enormous, because there is a better acceptance of the treatment by having less fatigue, there is more energy in the person, weight loss, future complications are avoided and, in the case of surgeries , there is greater wound healing when the patient is well nourished, the laboratory tests come out better and they do better during treatment”.
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Every month, the UANL University Hospital Nutrition Program treats approximately 100 to 120 cancer patients.
Nutrition and a better quality of life
According to data from the University Hospital of the Autonomous University of Nuevo León, for a cancer patient to be diagnosed with malnutrition, they must have lost around 10 percent of their weight for three or six months.
Another point to consider is that this disease influences not only where the tumor is located, but also affects the reduction of the person’s muscle mass.
Therefore, weight loss combined with treatment also translates into a patient fatigue which is leading to a functional deterioration that impacts its outcome.
In this scenario, that the patient receives a multidisciplinary care with a nutritional support approach will help counteract the effects of the disease, as well as those associated with treatment.
Recovering the nutritional status broadly translates into a quality of life benefit. We cannot focus only on treating tumors, but we have to consider the global state of the person. Once we integrate the nutritional part, it translates into improving the patient’s performance status, the subject’s daily autonomy in their usual routines and in resuming their activities as before the disease.
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