• Clin Nutr · Oct 2005

    Bioelectric impedance and individual characteristics as prognostic factors for post-operative complications.

    • Maria Cristina G Barbosa-Silva and Aluísio J D Barros.
    • Post-graduate program in Epidemiology, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Brazil. mcsilva@epidemio-ufpel.org.br
    • Clin Nutr. 2005 Oct 1; 24 (5): 830-8.

    Background And AimsMalnutrition increases morbidity and mortality in surgical patients, and for this reason, several nutritional markers have been used as prognostic tools to identify surgical patients under a higher risk to develop complications in post-operative period. Few studies show the impact of nutritional markers after controlling for others variables, such as age and severity of disease. A new method, bioelectric impedance analysis (BIA), and its parameter, phase angle, have been described as a prognostic tool in several clinical situations, but they have never been studied in surgical population. The objective of this work is to assess the importance of nutritional variables and parameters from BIA as predictors of post-operative complications in a multivariable regression model.MethodsThe nutritional status of 225 adult patients scheduled to undergo gastrointestinal surgery was assessed by several methods, including bioelectric impedance analysis and subjective global assessment. Potential confounding factors were also studied. Patients were screened for post-operative complications until hospital discharge.ResultsWeight loss greater than 10%, subjective global assessment, nutritional risk assessment, ECM/BCM ratio and phase angle (from BIA) were the prognostic factors significantly associated with post-operative complications in the crude analysis. After adjusting for sex, age, marital status, tumors and pre-operative infections, only phase angle remained as a prognostic factor (RR=4.3; CI95% 1.6-11.8 for phase angle <-0.8 sd), while the other nutritional variables lost their association with post-operative complications.ConclusionPhase angle remains as an important prognostic factor for postoperative complications, even after adjusting for other individual predictors and confounders. Its utility in the identification of patients eligible for nutritional therapy has now to be evaluated.

      Pubmed     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…