There is a growing body of evidence to support that intensive individualized nutritional counseling can be beneficial to cancer patients by helping them to increase their dietary intakes as well as forestall weight loss and treatment interruptions associated with therapy. In fact, the European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism guidelines have a recommendation that promotes the use of individualize counseling and the use of high-protein dietary supplements increase food intake in gastrointestinal and head-neck cancer patients who are going through radiation therapy. This includes groups that may or may not be receiving chemotherapy as well. In a previous study looking at the acute effects of radiotherapy in patients with colorectal
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These symptoms were found to be to occur more frequently and have an earlier presentation in Groups 2 and 3 when compared to Group 1. Furthermore, the severity of symptoms in Groups 2 and 3 were much worse than Group 1. Survival was worse in Group 3 which had the highest mortality rate (30% of patients) and the shortest median survival period of 4.9 years. Group 1, on the other hand, exhibited the best survival with a mortality rate of 8% and a median survival period of 7.3 years. Survival for Group 2 fell between Group 1 and 3. Similarly, disease progression occurred in a higher percentage of the patients in Group 3 (58% of patients) than those in Group 2 (31%) or Group 1 …show more content…
Although more research is warranted to validate this assumption, specialized dietary recommendations to help manage the adverse effects of antineoplastic treatments could soon become a new standard of care for cancer patients. This would create a need for more registered dietitians to provide this type of individualized nutritional therapy for this population. Nutrition may never be a first-line therapy for treating cancer, but it holds the potential for improving the response to radiation and chemotherapy as well as long-term survival and quality of
These symptoms were found to be to occur more frequently and have an earlier presentation in Groups 2 and 3 when compared to Group 1. Furthermore, the severity of symptoms in Groups 2 and 3 were much worse than Group 1. Survival was worse in Group 3 which had the highest mortality rate (30% of patients) and the shortest median survival period of 4.9 years. Group 1, on the other hand, exhibited the best survival with a mortality rate of 8% and a median survival period of 7.3 years. Survival for Group 2 fell between Group 1 and 3. Similarly, disease progression occurred in a higher percentage of the patients in Group 3 (58% of patients) than those in Group 2 (31%) or Group 1 …show more content…
Although more research is warranted to validate this assumption, specialized dietary recommendations to help manage the adverse effects of antineoplastic treatments could soon become a new standard of care for cancer patients. This would create a need for more registered dietitians to provide this type of individualized nutritional therapy for this population. Nutrition may never be a first-line therapy for treating cancer, but it holds the potential for improving the response to radiation and chemotherapy as well as long-term survival and quality of