Relation between nutritional status and dependency on mechanical ventilation in critical oncologic patients

Abstract

Bad nutrition is related with the loss of ­muscle mass, which, in turn, may be responsible for the poor prognosis of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). The ­relationship between nutritional status and cancer has been widely studied. However, the relationship between nutritional status and time spent under ­invasive ­mechanical ventilation (IMV) in cancer patients is not yet fully understood. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between the nutritional status in cancer patients in the ICU and their time of permanence under IMV. Fifty seven patients admitted to Hospital Erasto ­Gaertner's ICU on invasive ventilatory support for at least 48 hours were included in this study. Patient data were collected regarding gender, age, body mass index (BMI), topographic location of the cancer, clinical stage of the disease, anatomopathological examination, treatment administered, reason for ICU admission, and APACHE II score. The nutritional diagnosis were malnutrition (22.81%), normal weight (50.88%), overweight (14.04%), and obese (12.28%). The APACHE II score average was 26.4 points and the expected rate of mortality was 60%. The average time on mechanical ventilation was 11.2 days. The ­correlation between body mass index and time on IMV was r=0.076 and p=0.575. We concluded that most cancer patients' nutritional classification was normal weight, and their time of permanence under IMV was high. Still, when analyzed in isolation, the nutritional status is not related to the time of permanence under IMV.