ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Nutr.
Sec. Nutrition Methodology
Optimization of the calculation of dietary energy intake in oncology chemotherapy patients: based on a longitudinal study
Yao Liu 1,2
Tian Zhang 3
Yufang Ren 4
Guorong Wang 5
Yanfen Wang 1
1. People’s Hospital of Deyang City, Deyang, China
2. Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chengdu, China
3. Sichuan Cancer Hospital and Institute, Chengdu, China
4. West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
5. West China Fourth Hospital Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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Abstract
Objective:The aim of this study was to investigate the current status of dietary intake in patients undergoing chemotherapy for oncology and to determine the types of dietary intake in patients undergoing chemotherapy for oncology in order to construct and validate an optimization model for dietary energy calculation. Methods:Using the convenience sampling method, tumor chemotherapy patients who were treated at a certain tertiary first-class tumor specialized hospital from January 2022 to January 2023 and met the inclusion criteria were enrolled. The 24-hour dietary recall method was employed to conduct a longitudinal assessment of the patients' dietary intake at five time points: before chemotherapy (T0), on days 1-3 of chemotherapy (T1), during the first week of chemotherapy (T2), during the second week of chemotherapy (T3), and during the third week of chemotherapy (T4).Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to classify the foods consumed by the patients undergoing chemotherapy. A multivariate linear regression analysis method was employed to establish an optimized model for calculating the dietary energy intake of patients with tumor chemotherapy. The goodness of fit and mean absolute error were used to evaluate the model. Results: A total of 116 patients were finally included in this study, and the dietary survey was completed for at least 4 cycles. Cluster analysis was performed based on the data of three characteristics of protein, fat and carbohydrate, and the results of the three-classification results were used to construct an energy calculation model for patients undergoing chemotherapy for tumors. R2= 0.39, MAE= 265.83, the degree of fit and accuracy of the model is fair, suitable for clinical promotion and application. Conclusions: The energy calculation model in this study fitted reasonably well, and the model was evaluated well. The energy calculation model is simple to use and the food categories are easily accessible. The energy calculation model provides a convenient and efficient energy assessment tool for clinical nutritional management, which is conducive to promoting the dynamic monitoring of clinical patients' dietary intake.
Summary
Keywords
chemotherapy, Energy calculation, nutrition, oncology, Optimization model
Received
07 November 2025
Accepted
20 February 2026
Copyright
© 2026 Liu, Zhang, Ren, Wang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Guorong Wang; Yanfen Wang
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