REVIEW article
Front. Oncol.
Sec. Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention
This article is part of the Research TopicIntegrating Nutrition in Cancer Therapy: Approaches to Improve Patient Outcomes and SurvivalView all 14 articles
NUTRITIONAL ASSESSMENTS AND INTERVENTIONS IN HEAD AND NECK, ESOPHAGEAL, RECTAL AND LUNG CANCERS UNDERGOING ANTICANCER TREATMENTS: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Provisionally accepted
- 1Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics Unit, Candiolo Cancer Institute, FPO-IRCCS, Candiolo, Italy
- 2Department of Medical Oncology, Cancer Institute FPO-IRCCS, Candiolo, Turin, Italy
- 3Medical Oncology Unit, Department of Medical and Surgical Specialties, Radiological Sciences, and Public Health, University of Brescia., ASST Spedali Civili, Brescia, Italy
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In the last decades, greater toxicities deriving from anticancer treatments (especially chemo and/or radiotherapy), along with cancer sites, increase the risk of nutritional status impairment. This condition should be avoided because it could determine early therapies' interruptions and worse clinical outcomes. In this review, we aim to provide an overview of the current evidence obtained from Pubmed and Embase databases assessing the role of nutritional assessments and interventions during anticancer treamtents, with a particular focus on immunonutrition. Actual evidence suggests that nutritional practices are different worldwide, however, it is essential to define an adequate and standardized nutritional evaluation including at least food intake estimation, anthropometric measurements and body composition analysis. Nutritional interventions should always include intensive counseling and, in some cases, the prescription of specific dietary supplements. Nowadays, immunonutrition formulas represent a promising tool to improve many nutritional and treatment outcomes, but further studies are still necessary to define an evidence based clinical practice.
Keywords: Malnutrition, Nutritional intervention, Immunonutrition, Anticancer treatments, head and neck cancer, lung cancer, rectal cancer, esophageal cancer
Received: 30 Jul 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Casalone, Lazzari, Fassi and GREGORC. 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: Valentina Casalone, valentina.casalone@ircc.it
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