The role of nutrition on quality of life in cancer patients during radiotherapy

Goals of Work: The goal of the present work was to evaluate the quality of life (QoL) in relation to nutritional status and nutrient intake in cancer patients during radiotherapy (RT), particularly whether nutrient intake might influence the patient’s quality of life.Patients and Methods: Cancer patients (n=87, 54 males, 33 females) referred for RT were induced into the study. Patients with tumours of the head and neck and gastrointestinal tract were classified as high risk for RT induced nutritional problems, while patients with breast or lung cancer were considered as low- risk. The QoL was evaluated before and after RT, using the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire (EORTC-QLQ C30), while patients received nutritional counselling.Main Results: According to our results, the overall QoL pattern, before and after RT, was worse in the high-risk group patients. In the same group baseline malnutrition was associated with worse score of function scales, as well as with poor appetite or increased fatigue. These associations between malnutrition and function scales were also present at the end of RT. Improvement of nutritional intake during RT in high-risk patients was positively correlated with improvement of global QoL. In contrary, in low-risk patients nutritional parameters were not significantly associated with QoL dimensions.Conclusions: Individualized nutritional counselling accounting for nutritional status was able to improve patients’ quality of life in high-risk patients but not in the low risk. However, further studies are necessar