Evaluación del estado nutricional durante los tratamientos oncológicos en pacientes pediátricos del Hospital del Niño Dr. Francisco de Icaza Bustamante, Guayaquil 2021.

Abstract

The objective of this research was to assess the risk of malnutrition in oncology patients at the Dr. Francisco De Icaza Bustamante Children's Hospital, Guayaquil, from January to December 2021. The study was of a non-experimental, prospective, analytical, cross-sectional design. The non-probabilistic sample consisted of 167 patients from the oncohematology department who met the inclusion criteria. Factors such as origin, age group, gender, type of cancer, nutritional status using the Body Mass Index, and the risk of malnutrition were considered. To assess the risk of malnutrition based on tumor severity, the nutritional care guideline for pediatric cancer by PAHO (Pan American Health Organization) and the STRONGkids malnutrition risk tool were used. The results for moderate malnutrition and severe malnutrition indicated that 48.08% corresponded to infants and preschoolers, 36.36% to school-age children, and 28.57% to adolescents. When determined by gender, a higher prevalence of moderate and severe malnutrition was found in males (8.65%). The risk of malnutrition based on tumor severity revealed that adolescents had the highest risk (36.73%), followed by infants and preschoolers (26.92%), and then school-age children (25.76%). The risk of malnutrition assessed using the STRONGkids nutritional screening tool positioned adolescents as the group with the highest risk (14.29%), followed by infants and preschoolers (11.54%), and school-age children in third place (9.09%). Given the high prevalence of malnutrition risk in pediatric cancer patients and considering that this risk increases at a younger age due to patients' body composition, nutritional evaluation should be mandatory from the diagnosis stage, especially before, during, and after oncology treatments, given the potential modifiability of this risk factor.