Cancer patient nutrition

Dear Colleagues,

A special working group was recently established within the Czech Society for Oncology (CSO) that focused on the definition of nutritional standards in oncology. Its activities resulted in the incorporation of nutritional screening into the standards of cancer treatment and the creation of a comprehensive tool for monitoring the nutritional status of our patients during their inpatient treatment and subsequent outpatient care. It is a bit sad that this tool has been used by a minimal number of facilities to date. One of the possible reasons is that we have not yet considered patient nutrition to be an integral part of basic therapy.

It is clearly demonstrated in international literature that a patient’s poor nutrition status has a significant negative effect on the prognosis, increases the risk of complications, and generally reduces the efficacy of cancer therapy. On the other hand, systematically provided nutritional support can considerably support the effects of treatment for the primary diagnosis.

The creation of the tool for diagnosis of the nutritional status of our patients is obviously only the first step in the entire process aimed at improving the quality of care for our patients. This issue needs more attention and a systematic approach. Therefore we plan to establish a group of oncologists within the CSO that would study the issue in more detail and be willing to actively present the results of its work at local and international forums and in scientific journals. I am writing to you to ask if you would consider active support of this important topic, or would consider being personally involved in the activities of this working group. If you would like to support the issue of nutritional support in oncology in any way, please send your contact information to the secretary of the CSO, Ms. Marta Casková, by the end of September.

Thank you for your support.

With kind regards

prof. MUDr. Jiri Vorlicek, CSc.