Effect of different nutritional support methods on esophageal cancer patients receiving radiotherapy / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To compare the effect of nutritional support with and without tube feeding on the incidence of adverse reactions in radiotherapy for esophageal cancer.Methods A total of 120 esophageal cancer patients with high-risk factors receiving radiotherapy were selected and randomly assigned into the tube feeding (TF,n=60) and non-tube feeding groups (NTF,n=60) according to the random number method.Nutritional interventions were performed during radiotherapy in both groups.The incidence of esophagitis and myelosuppressioa,aulmonary infectioa,autritional status and the completion of radiotherapy were observed and statistically compared between TF and NTF groups.Results In the TF groua,ahe incidence of ≥ grade 2 esophagitis was lower than that in the NTF group.The incidence of grade 3 esophagitis significantly differed between two groups (P＜ 0.05).The incidence of grade 1-2 myelosuppression did not differ between two groupa,ahereas the incidence of grade 3 myelosuppression in the TF group was significantly lower than that in the NTF group (P＜0.05).In the TF groua,ahe incidence of pulmonary infection was remarkably lower than that in the NTF group (P＜0.05).The changes of BMI and prealbumin in the TF group were better than those in the NTF group (both P＜0.05).One patient in the NTF group failed to complete the radiotherapy due to grade Ⅳ esophagitia,and 5 cases in the NTF group (P＜ 0.05).In the TF groua,ahe length of hospital stay was significantly shortened by 6.2 d on average (P＜ 0.05).Conclusions During radiotherapy for esophageal cancer patients with high-risk factora,autritional support with tube feeding can effectively reduce the incidence of adverse reactiona,amprove the completion rate of treatmena,and shorten the average length of hospital stay.