Estado nutricional de pacientes pediátricos con cáncer atendidos en el Instituto del Cáncer SOLCA Cuenca – Ecuador. 2016-2020

Abstract

Background: Cancer is a leading cause of mortality among children and adolescents worldwide. The nutritional status, which includes undernutrition, overweight and obesity, affects the clinical outcomes of treatment. Objective: To evaluate the nutritional status of children with cancer, attended at the SOLCA Cuenca Institute, period 2016 -2020. Materials and methods: A descriptive observational study was conducted in 158 children under 18 years of age admitted with cancer at Solca. The information was obtained from clinical histories recorded in a form developed by the author and analyzed in the SPSS v.26 program. Descriptive analysis was performed by frequencies, percentages and means. Results: 23.5% of patients presented undernutrition at diagnosis, 19.6% were overweight and 0.6% obese. These values increased to 30.4%, 22.2% and 7% respectively at the end of treatment. In hematologic malignancies, overweight and obesity predominate, while in solid tumors undernutrition predominates. Of the patients, 13.9% presented relapse, of which 50% had some type of malnutrition. Nearly 40% of the patients presented more than three hospitalizations for neutropenia in the first year of treatment, of which 39.7% presented some type of malnutrition, with undernutrition predominating. The mean length of hospitalization was 13.8 days. Conclusion: Undernutrition constitutes the main problem of malnutrition in children with cancer, which together with overweight and obesity, determine a higher percentage of relapse of the disease and longer hospitalization time due to neutropenia.