Assessment of the Nutritional Status of the Egyptian Patient with End Stage Liver Disease Prior to Liver Transplantation

Abstract

Background and Aim: Patients with advanced liver disease have several risk factors to develop nutritional deficiencies. Accurate nutritional assessment is a real challenge because many of the traditionally measured parameters of nutritional status vary with severity of liver disease independently of nutritional status. The objective of this study was to assess the Egyptian patients with end stage liver disease and to compare different tools used to assess their nutritional status. Patients and Methods: 60 patients were nutritionally assessed by SGA, RFH-SGA anthropometry, handgrip dynamometry and biochemical tests. Clinical variables were cross analyzed with the nutritional assessment methods. Results: Malnutrition ranged from 7% by BMI and 100% by SGA. Agreement among all the methods was low compared with the SGA. Correlation between Malnutrition prevalence and the severity of liver disease was verified using Child-Pugh score more than MELD score. Conclusion: Malnutrition is highly prevalent among the Egyptian patients with end stage liver disease prior to liver transplantation. Although the diagnosis of nutritional status is not easy among this category of patients, it varied according to the method used. Nutritional support should be an important part of the preoperative care of liver transplantation patients.