Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of enteral nutritional support to cancer patients who were clinically malnourished and receiving chemotherapy after surgery. To estimate the effect of nutritional support using Greenbia(Dr. Chung's Food Cooperation, LTD., Seoul, Korea) for patients with cancer, 41 patients were participated between January 1991 to November 1991. All patients were randomized into 2 groups and 18 patients were evaluated(experimental group : 12, control group : 6). The counseling was carried out once a week for 2 months. To compare the nutrient intake before and after administration of nutritional beverage and to identify the potential effectiveness of nutritional support in this group, a record of this diet on all patients during the test period was carried out for 3 days. To evaluate the patients nutritional status, the anthropometric parameters and serum protein were checked at the begining as baseline, week 3, week 6, and at the end of the test(week 8). In the case of energy balance, no patients appeared to be positive before administration of nutritional beverage, while 2 patients among 12 were observed to be more than 100% positive after administration. There were some differences among the experimental group which had administration of nutritional beverage but most of the results of anthropometric parameters were improved. When comparing the experimental and control group, there was significant increase in body weight, body fat, arm circumference and tricep skinfold. This study suggests that enteral nutritional support can help improving the nutritional status of patients received chemotherapy.

Keywords

• enteral nutritional support;
• cancer