Children, cancer, and nutrition--A dynamic triangle in review

Title

Children, cancer, and nutrition--A dynamic triangle in review

Creator

Sala A; Pencharz P; Barr RD

Identifier

Publisher

Cancer

Date

2004

Subject

Child; Humans; infant; Prognosis; Nutritional Support; Health Status; Survival Analysis; Incidence; Preschool; Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support; infant; Nutritional Status; Newborn; Nutritional Failure; Child welfare; Developing Countries; Malnutrition/epidemiology/physiopathology; Neoplasms/complications/therapy; Nutrition Assessment

Description

The overall cure rate for cancer in childhood now exceeds 70% and is projected to reach 85% by the year 2010 in industrialized countries. Therefore, major attention is being placed on reducing the side effects of therapy. However, 85% of the world's children live in developing countries, where access to adequate care often is limited and health status frequently is influenced adversely by prevalent infectious diseases and malnutrition. Despite several confounding factors (different definitions of nutritional status, the wide variety of measures used for its assessment, the selection biases by disease and stage, treatment protocols of variable dose intensity and efficacy, small sample sizes of the studies conducted in the last 20 years), it is accepted that the prevalence of malnutrition at diagnosis averages 50% in children with cancer in developing countries; whereas, in industrialized countries, it is related to the type of tumor and the extent of the disease, ranging from < 10% in patients with standard-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia to 50% in patients with advanced neuroblastoma. The importance of nutritional status in children with cancer is related to its possible influence on the course of the disease and survival. Some authors have described decreased tolerance of chemotherapy associated with altered metabolism of antineoplastic drugs, increased infection rates, and poor clinical outcome in malnourished children. In this article, the authors review methods of nutritional assessment and the pathogenesis of nutritional morbidity in children with cancer as well as correlations of nutritional status with diagnosis, treatment, and outcome.
2004

Rights

Article information provided for research and reference use only. PedPalASCNET does not hold any rights over the resource listed here. All rights are retained by the journal listed under publisher and/or the creator(s).

Type

Journal Article

Citation List Month

Backlog

Citation

Sala A; Pencharz P; Barr RD, “Children, cancer, and nutrition--A dynamic triangle in review,” Pediatric Palliative Care Library, accessed March 18, 2024, https://pedpalascnetlibrary.omeka.net/items/show/13096.