| ABSTRACTMalnutrition and cachexia are the common complications of cancer patients in palliative care. Therefore, it is indispensable that positive and reasonable nutritional support should be carried out to control the symptoms and improve quality of patients. Based on the investigation to current literature, this paper described the impact of cachexia in cancer patients on clinical outcomes and assessed objectively nutritional status of cancer patients in palliative care. The progress of nutritional support in palliative care, such as dietary counseling, oral nutrition supplementations, enteral nutrition and parenteral nutrition, was also reviewed. Although current nutritional support for palliative treatment is still lacking evidence-base, we still recommend positively multidisciplinary teamwork, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, nutritionists, etc., to provide patients and their families with the effective nutrition therapy to improve their quality of life. |
