A recent study: Malnutrition kills cancer patients in Yemen, and most of those infected are women
English - Thursday 21 September 2023 الساعة 09:50 am
Mokha, NewsYemen, exclusive:
A recent study on cancer patients in Yemen reported that most cases of this malignant tumor are more common among women than men, and that malnutrition leads to exacerbation of disease-related complications and reduces the effectiveness of treatment.
The study, conducted by three cancer oncologists at the National Oncology Center in Sanaa, said that cancer greatly affects the nutritional status of patients, and that malnutrition is one of the common complications among cancer patients, especially among the elderly.
The study, which the three researchers described as a “cross-sectional” study of cancer patients who frequently visit hospitals, was conducted during the months of February and March 2022, and included 296 cases, including 225 women. The study indicated that the rate of malnutrition was higher among infected women at 16.2% and among infected men at 15.5%, and that 49% of the total cases experienced a weight loss of 5-15% of their weight before the infection.
The researchers said: This study aims to determine the prevalence of malnutrition among cancer patients in hospitals and to identify factors associated with malnutrition, and they recommended conducting future studies to further investigate this problem.
They added that due to limited diagnostic and clinical resources, poor quality of medical records, and the nine-year civil war, the incidence of cancer in Yemen is unknown, leading to ambiguity of the burden of cancer at the national level. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a national malnutrition registry for cancer patients in the Republic of Yemen.
The study said that according to GLOBOCAN estimates, the overall age-standardized rate (ASR) of cancer in Yemen in 2020 was 97/100,000 people, with a higher incidence rate in females at 102.2/100,000 compared to males at 92.7/100,000 people, indicating that approximately 20% of cancer patients die due to malnutrition and related complications, and the cancer itself is not the main cause of death.
Trained nutrition experts used the method of sampling study participants from the outpatient clinic located at the National Oncology Center in Sanaa, and participants were evaluated through face-to-face interviews, using a structured questionnaire specifically designed to collect the basic information required to achieve the research objectives.
The study reported that social and demographic variables were collected for the infected men and women, such as: age, gender, origin, marital status, occupation, education, and monthly family income. Behavioral variables, such as smoking, chewing khat, and using orange snuff; nutritional variables, including nutritional effect symptoms, current weight (kg), usual weight (kg), height (m), percentage of weight loss, previous body mass index (kg/m2), and mid-arm circumference (cm); Clinical variables, such as: type of cancer, presence of malignancy, and performance status; Treatment variables, such as previous treatment and type of anticancer treatment, were also collected.
One of the strange ironies in the study is that the number of infected non-smokers was higher than smokers and former smokers, as the number was as follows: 21 smokers, 83 former smokers and 192 non-smokers. The same applies to those who chew khat: 142 chew it and 172 do not use it at all. Which indicates that there are other causes of cancer that have not yet been studied.
The researchers sounded the alarm for the need to conduct more studies on the spread of malnutrition among people with cancer in Yemen, and to conduct studies that include longer periods of life for those affected and improve their nutritional system.
