Nutritional risk and postoperative complications in cancer patients/Risco nutricional e complicacoes pos-operatorias em pacientes oncologicos

Introduction: Malnutrition has been associated with a poorer prognosis in cancer patients. Thus, the early assessment of nutritional risk in these patients is fundamental. Objective: To identify associations between nutritional risk and postoperative complications in cancer patients. Method: An analytical, observational, longitudinal study was conducted with cancer patients undergoing surgical treatment at a public university hospital in December 2019. Preoperative nutritional risk was assessed using the Nutritional Risk Screening-2002. Variables related to surgery (severity, temporal classification of the procedure, postoperative complications, total hospital stay and postoperative hospital stay) were also collected. Results: Eighty-eight patients were included, 51.1% of whom were adults and 64.8% were female. Nutritional risk was found in 28.4% (n = 25) of patients. The procedures performed were mainly elective (83.1%) and more severe (53.9%). The most frequent category of surgery was miscellaneous, followed by coloproctological, urological and gastric surgeries. Significant associations were found between nutritional risk and both total and postoperative hospital stay (p