Nutritional responsiveness affects novel neutrophil parameters and reduces in-hospital mortality and costs in elective cancer oesophagectomy – a single centre, prospective, observational study

Introduction:
Malnutrition in surgical patients remains a common issue affecting the perioperative period. Oesophageal cancer is a disease associated with one of the highest malnutrition rates. Assessment of patient nutritional status remains a challenge due to limited validated tools. Novel parameters to identify malnourished patients and the effectiveness of preoperative nutritional intervention might improve treatment results in the perioperative period.

Material and methods:
This was a prospective, observational, single-centre study of patients scheduled for elective oesophagectomy. The primary aim of this study was to establish the correlation between neutrophil reactivity intensity (NEUT-RI) and neutrophil granularity intensity (NEUT-GI) and patients’ nutritional status. We divided patients into nutritional responders (R group) and nutritional non-responders (NR group) defined as regaining at least 25% of the maximum preoperative body weight loss during the preoperative period.

Results:
The R group had significantly shorter intensive care unit (ICU) stays: 5.5 (4–8) vs. 13 (7–31) days (P = 0.01). It resulted in a lower cost of ICU stays in the R group: 4775.2 (3938.9–7640.7) vs. 12255.8 (7787.6–49108.7) euro in the NR group (P = 0.01). Between the R group and the NR group, we observed statistically significant differences in both preoperative NEUT-RI (48.6 vs. 53.4, P = 0.03) and NEUT-GI (154.6 vs. 159.3, P = 0.02). Apart from the T grade, the only preoperative factor associated with reduced mortality was the nutritional responsiveness: 11.1% vs. 71.4% (P = 0.008).

Conclusions:
Preoperative nutritional responsiveness affects neutrophil intensity indexes and reduces in-hospital mortality and costs associated with hospital stay. Further research is required to determine the correlation between novel neutrophil parameters and patients’ nutritional status.