open access: The nutritional risk in oncology: a study of 1,453 cancer outpatients

 "In 2003, during a scientific meeting in Milan, which involved both oncologists and nutritionists, it was clearly appreciated that there was a substantial discrepancy of view between these specialists as regard the impact that malnutrition might have on the outcome of the cancer patient and the potential role of the nutritional support. As a consequence, an open working group was constituted with the aim of steering a protocol to prospectively screen the nutritional status of the oncologic outpatients (hence the acronym SCRINIO, that is SCReenIng the Nutritional status In Oncology)."


"...Such a percentage of nutritionally at risk outpatients is especially remarkable and worrisome when considering that patients able to attend an ambulatory consultation or therapy should represent a favourably selected segment of the cancer population..."

Table 1 Patient distribution according to demographic and disease characteristics
Table 2 Mean NRS score and percentage of patients with nutritional risk (NRS score ≥3), according to main patients’ characteristics
Table 3 Frequency of patients at nutritional risk (NRS score ≥3), estimated by the multivariable logistic model