1. Nutrition therapy using a multidisciplinary team improves survival rates in patients with liver cirrhosis.
- Author
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Motoh Iwasa, Kazuko Iwata, Nagisa Hara, Ayana Hattori, Masumi Ishidome, Noriko Sekoguchi-Fujikawa, Rumi Mifuji-Moroka, Ryosuke Sugimoto, Naoki Fujita, Yoshinao Kobayashi, and Yoshiyuki Takei
- Subjects
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TREATMENT of cirrhosis of the liver , *HEALTH outcome assessment , *CHI-squared test , *COMPARATIVE studies , *DIET therapy , *HEALTH care teams , *CIRRHOSIS of the liver , *NUTRITIONAL assessment , *NUTRITION counseling , *PATIENT education , *PROBABILITY theory , *SURVIVAL analysis (Biometry) , *SURVIVAL , *U-statistics , *RETROSPECTIVE studies , *DESCRIPTIVE statistics , *KAPLAN-Meier estimator - Abstract
Objectives: Very few reports thus far have clinically elucidated the advantages of a nutrition support team (NST) in the field of liver diseases. The present study retrospectively analyzed whether nutrition therapy for liver cirrhosis (LC), performed by a multidisciplinary team that includes registered dieticians, improves survival rates. Methods: In study 1, we compared survival rates between two groups of patients with LC to elucidate the effects of nutrition management by registered dieticians. The first group was comprised of 101 patients that received no dietary counseling from a dietician, and the second group was comprised of 133 patients that received nutritional counseling following nutrition assessment. In study 2, we split the patients who received nutritional counseling in study 1 into two groups and compared their survival rates with the objective of investigating the effects of a multidisciplinary team approach on survival rate. The first group was comprised of 51 patients that, in addition to regular nutritional counseling given by a dietician, regularly attended courses on liver disease given every 3 to 6 mo. The second group was comprised of 82 patients that did not attend the liver-disease courses. Results: During study 1, 34 patients in the first group and 20 patients in the second group died, representing a significant difference (P < 0.05). This difference was even more pronounced in the subset of patients classified as Child-Pugh class A (P < 0.01), but no differences were seen among patients in classes B and C (P = 0.378). During study 2, four patients in the first group and 15 patients in the second group died, representing a significant difference (P < 0.05). Conclusions: This study showed that nutritional intervention using a multidisciplinary team during the treatment of LC improves survival rates and quality of life of the patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
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