A clinical study of resting energy expenditure in patients with lung cancer : Effect of branched chain amino acid

The relationship between the nutritional assessment and the energy metabolism in the pre-and postoperative period of lung-resected patients was examined, and the effect of branched chain amino acids on the nutritional state in the early postoperative period was determined. The lung cancer patients had a significantly higher resting energy expenditure than the benign lung disease patients. In the lung cancer patients, progress of stage was accompanied by an increase in the resting energy expenditure and a decrease in the nonprotein respiratory quotient. There was protein calorie maluntrition in ablut 10% of the lung cancer patients, and the decrease of nutrition was accompanied by an increase in the resting energy expenditure. Administration of branched chain amino acids in the early postoperative period did not reduce the increase in the resting energy expenditure, but had a tendency of decreasing the arterial carbon dioxidie tension