Malnutrition In Cirrhosis: Review Of Nutritional Risk Screening And Nutritional Assessment Tools

Purpose: This review aims primarily at identifying various nutritional risk screening and nutrition assessment tools that could be used in clinical practice in cirrhotic patients given the lack of widely recognized tools for this particular group of patients. Moreover, the review aims at assessing the prevalence of malnutrition in cirrhotic patients based on data from the relevant literature. Material /Method: An extensive review of the Scopus and Pubmed scientific bases was carried out by April 2018 using the terms “nutritional/dietary” combined with “screening/evaluation” and “tool/index/questionnaire”. Eventually, 39 articles on nutrition risk assessment and nutrition assessment tools were selected. Then, keywords were used based on the name of each questionnaire in combination with the terms “cirrhosis/cirrhotic/liver disease”. Among these, the final selection included 42 related articles. Results and Conclusions. Nineteen nutritional risk screening
tools for hospitalized and geriatric patients were identified and 2 specific for cirrhotic patients. Of the non-specilised, only 4 have been used in studies with cirrhotics. Accordingly, 8 nutritional assessment tools for hospitalized and geriatric patients were identified and only 1 specific for cirrhotics. Of the nonspecialised, 5 have been used studies in cirrhotics. Depending on the tool used, 33.4-76.7% of patients
with early stage cirrhosis were identified as being at nutrition risk, with the percentage reaching 49.8-100% for the patients with advanced cirrhosis. The prevalence of malnutrition varied greatly depending on the stage and the cause of the disease (0-100%). Hellenic J Nutr Diet 2018, 5(2):45-58