Objective: To assess the association between the risk of malnutrition, as estimated by the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) numerical scores, and adverse outcomes in oncology patients.
Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis.
Settings: A comprehensive search was conducted in PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, CKNI, VIP, Sinomed and Wanfang databases. Studies that examined the association between the risk of malnutrition, as estimated by the PG-SGA numerical scores, and overall survival (OS) or postoperative complications in oncology patients were included. Patients were classified as low risk (PG-SGA ≤ 3), medium risk (PG-SGA 4-8) and high risk of malnutrition (PG-SGA > 8).
Subject: Nineteen studies reporting on twenty articles (n 9286 patients).
Results: The prevalence of medium and high risk of malnutrition ranged from 16·0 % to 71·6 %. A meta-analysis showed that cancer patients with medium and high risk of malnutrition had a poorer OS (adjusted hazard ratios (HR) 1·98; 95 % CI 1·77, 2·21) compared with those with a low risk of malnutrition. Stratified analysis revealed that the pooled HR was 1·55 (95 % CI 1·17, 2·06) for medium risk of malnutrition and 2·65 (95 % CI 1·90, 3·70) for high risk of malnutrition. Additionally, the pooled adjusted OR for postoperative complications was 4·65 (95 % CI 1·61, 13·44) for patients at medium and high risk of malnutrition.
Conclusions: The presence of medium and high risk of malnutrition, as estimated by the PG-SGA numerical scores, is significantly linked to poorer OS and an increased risk of postoperative complications in oncology patients.
Keywords: Cancer; Meta-analysis; Overall survival; Patient-generated subjective global assessment; Postoperative complications.