Nutritional status of breast cancer patients and the related factors at Vietnam National Cancer hospital in 2019-2020

Abstract

A cross-sectional study on 170 breast cancer patients to describe nutritional status of breast cancer patients and the related factors at Vietnam National Cancer hospital in 2019-2020. The results revealed that overweight and obesity were the most common problem among breast cancer survivors. Up to 38% of studied patients are diagnosed as overweight or obesity using BMI classification; 84.71% are overweight while 80% of the studied subjects had central obesity. Alcohol abuse and surgery treatment were the factors worsening the risk of malnutrition of the study subjects (OR = 8.2 and 13.6, respectively). Low frequency of meat consumption (<1-3 times/week) has a higher risk of malnutrition than those who used meat daily (OR = 88.6). In addition, the age group, physical activities, chemotherapy and menopausal status affected the overweight and obesity status of breast cancer survivors (OR= 2.5, 10.7, 20.3 and 4.1, respectively). Low frequency consumption of vegetables increased the risk of overweight (OR=3.2). It is necessary to assess and screen the nutritional status for hospitalized patients immediately before treatment. Food intake and nutritional status of patients should also be paid attention in order to improve general health status and treatment outcome of breast
cancer patients.