The Validity of the GLIM Criteria for Malnutrition in Hospitalized Patients with Gastric Cancer

Abstract

Background

The Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) has recently proposed a consensus on the criteria to diagnose malnutrition. The validity of the new criteria to detect malnutrition is still being explored. Therefore, this study aimed to verify the validity of the GLIM criteria for malnutrition in hospitalized patients with gastric cancer (GC) using the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) as a comparator.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional study involving 217 GC inpatients. Nutrition assessment was performed during their hospitalization with both the GLIM criteria and the PG-SGA. Consistency of the assessment results and their correlation with the quality of life in patients were evaluated.

Results

A moderate concordance (K = 0.483, P < 0.001) was founded between the two methods for malnutrition diagnosis. Spearman correlation analysis confirmed the significant association (P < 0.05) between most aspects of the quality of life and nutrition status regarding either the GLIM criteria or the PG-SGA. In multivariate linear regression, adjusted for confounding variables, the quality of life was significantly associated with nutrition status by the GLIM criteria (B = 5.63, 95% CI: 0.09–11.16, P = 0.046), and by the PG-SGA (B = 13.53, 95% CI: 7.78–19.27, P < 0.001).

Conclusions

This study provides a new understanding of the validity of the GLIM criteria in hospitalized GC patients. In the study, we have found that the new GLIM criteria are of concurrent and clinical validity in GC inpatients, suggested by the comparison with the PG-SGA and its correlation with the quality of life.

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the support and encouragement of all staff members of the gastrointestinal surgical ward and medical oncology ward at Ruijin Hospital of Medical School of Shanghai Jiaotong University.

Authors’ contributions

Qiuju Tian, Liyuan Qin, Weiyi Zhu, Beiwen Wu design the study; Liyuan Qin wrote the manuscript; Qiuju Tian and Liyuan Qin collected, analyzed, and interpreted the data; Beiwen Wu and Weiyi Zhu critically revised the manuscript; all authors contributed to the manuscript preparation and approved the final version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No conflict of interest in this study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by a grant from the Shanghai health and family planning system important weak discipline construction project-oncology nursing (2015ZB0305). The funding source had no role in the design of this study and will not have any role during its execution, analyses, interpretation of the data, writing assistance, and the decision to submit results. The authors thank the patients and the investigators who participated in this study.