Comparison of a novel, simple nutrition screening tool for adult oncology inpatients and the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST) against the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA).

Background: Oncology inpatients are at high risk of malnutrition. Identification of at risk patients by nutrition screening requires a practical and easy to use tool. In this study, we have compared a simple, novel nutrition screening tool designed for an oncology inpatient setting and the Malnutrition Screening Tool (MST) against the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA).

Methods: This was an observational study to compare assessment of nutritional status by PG-SGA with nutrition screening using the Royal Marsden Nutrition Screening Tool (RMNST) and the MST. Patients were recruited from a single tertiary cancer centre.

Results: One hundred and twenty-six oncology inpatients underwent a full nutritional assessment and nutrition screening. The PG-SGA tool identified 90 (71%) patients as malnourished or at risk and 36 (29%) patients as well-nourished. The RMNST had a sensitivity of 93% and a specificity of 53%, and the MST had a sensitivity of 66% and a specificity of 83 %. Predictive value (ROC AUC) of both screening tools was excellent at 0.84 and 0.83 for RMNST and MST, respectively.

Conclusions: This study identified a high prevalence of malnutrition in the population with 71% of patients being identified as malnourished or at risk of malnutrition. The RMNST had an excellent sensitivity for identifying patients who were malnourished or at risk of malnutrition in the inpatient setting although it had a poor specificity. The MST had a poorer sensitivity of 66 %. We would recommend that the RMNST is trialled in other oncology inpatient settings and also in the outpatient setting.