Nutrition In The Neoadjuvant Gastric Cancer Patient, Is Early Administration Appropriate?

Authors

Patrick Stringfellow, University of LynchburgFollow

Specialty

General Surgery

Advisor

Dr. Thomas Colletti, DHSc, PA-C, DFAAPA

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Gastric cancer is one of the worlds' leading cancers.Despite the availability of testing, patients often present with advanced (stage III or stage IV) gastric cancer. These patients are always in a state of malnutrition and will be sarcopenic secondary to pain, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting and dysphagia. Treatment for this cancer includes radical surgery, chemotherapy and rarely radiotherapy. It is already well documented that nutrition is critical to patient outcomes during chemotherapy, surgery and healing; because of this many measures are already in place to improve nutrition in these patients. This literature review will look directly at the use of enteral feeding (EN) of gastric cancer patients prior to or in conjunction with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NACT).

Methods

Research was focused on the keywords: nutrition, gastric cancer, enteral feeding and neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Several electronic journals were reviewed, National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), PubMed, QxMD Read, Science Direct, as well a search was conducted through Alberta Health Services Knowledge Resource Service (KRS).

Results

The combined information within each of the articles reviewed all recognized that early nutrition supplementation had positive impacts on maintaining albumin level, an increase in the patient's immunity, improved healing and shortened length of hospital stay.

Conclusion

All patients receive nutrition through their hospital stay; research indicates that the earlier nutrition is given to a patient, the better overall outcomes of chemotherapy, surgery, shortened length of stay, and quality of life.

Keywords

Nutrition, gastric cancer, enteral feeding and neoadjuvant nutrition.

Recommended Citation

Stringfellow P. Nutrition In The Neoadjuvant Gastric Cancer Patient, Is Early Administration Appropriate?. University of Lynchburg DMSc Doctoral Project Assignment Repository. 2021; 3(1).