Preoperative nutritional risk assessment in predicting postoperative outcome in patients undergoing major surgery.

Introduction: Although a variety of nutritional indices have been found to be valuable in predicting patient outcome when used alone, there is no consensus on the best method for assessing the nutritional status of hospitalized patients. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the nutritional status of a cohort of patients who underwent major elective surgery using the Nutritional Risk Index (NRI), Maastricht Index (MI), Subjective Global Assessment (SGA), and Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) to determine the best possible nutrition screening system in surgical practice.

Methods: The study population consisted of 460 patients who underwent major elective surgery between December 1999 and March 2002.