• Turk J Med Sci · Apr 2020

    The use of prealbumin as a predictor of malnutrition in cirrhotic patients and the effect of nutritional support in patients with low prealbumin levels

    • Zuhal Dağ, Hüseyin Köseoğlu, and Murat Kekilli.
    • Department of Internal Medicine, Erol Olçok Education and Research Hospital, Çorum, Turkey
    • Turk J Med Sci. 2020 Apr 9; 50 (2): 398-404.

    Background/AimMalnutrition is an important and commonly seen prognostic factor in patients with cirrhosis. The diagnosis of malnutrition in cirrhosis patients may be challenging, and an easily measured and widely usable marker is lacking. Prealbumin, however, is an easily measured marker. In the current study we measured prealbumin levels in cirrhotic patients with no clinically apparent malnutrition and used it as a malnutrition marker. Another aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of nutritional support on patient with low prealbumin levels.Materials And MethodsFifty-two patients with Child A and Child B cirrhosis were selected for the study. Prealbumin levels were studied, and Child and MELD scores were calculated. Patients with prealbumin levels ˂180 mg/L were considered to have malnutrition, and two different types of nutritional products were given to these patients. The patients given nutritional support were investigated a month later, and parameters were compared.ResultsAccording to the prealbumin threshold of 180 mg/L, malnutrition frequencies were 59.3% for Child A and 95% for Child B cirrhosis. After the provision of nutritional support statistically significant improvements in albumin and INR levels were detected. In addition, the MELD score decreased; however, it was not statistically significant (P: 0.088). A statistically significant decrease in the MELD score was only obtained in patients with Child B cirrhosis (P: 0.033). When the oral replacement therapies were investigated separately, a statistically significant decrease in MELD scores was detected with product 1 (P: 0.043).ConclusionPrealbumin can be used as an easily measured parameter for earlier detection of malnutrition in patients with cirrhosis and without clinically apparent malnutrition. Oral nutritional support, especially with products containing relatively high carbohydrate levels and low protein, may have a favorable effect on MELD scores.This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…