Prospective study evaluating the value of subjective global assessment and national risk score 2002 for post-operative risk detection in living related donor liver transplant recipients

Abstract

Background: Chronic liver disease may be associated with protein energy malnutrition. Those malnourished patients undergoing liver transplantation suffer great morbidities and even mortalities. Estimating the degree of malnutrition in patients with end stage liver disease is a difficult job, Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) and Nutritional Risk Score-2002 (NRS-2002) are among many tools that can give an overview for the nutritional status of the patients. Aim: To detect the efficacy and the predictive validity of SGA and NRS 2002 for post-operative risk detection for liver transplant patients. Patients & Methods: 30 recipients of end stage liver disease had undergone a nutritional assessment by SGA score & NRS-2002 score, to be compared with the parameters of outcome of post-operative liver transplantation (ALT, AST, INR, Bilirubin, time spent in ICU, hospital infective episodes & number of antibiotic courses). Results: Patients declared as malnourished by SGA and NRS-2002 had higher post operative ALT & AST value, more prolonged INR, spent more time at ICU and hospital, suffered from more infective episodes and had more antibiotic courses in a significant sta tistical manner. Conclusion: SGA and NRS-2002 could be useful, simple and dependable tools to be used for risk detection of post-operative morbidities after liver transplantation.