Refresher Course: Nutritional Imbalance in Cancer Patients

On Monday and Tuesday was held at the State Cancer Institute, the first refresher course 'Nutritional Imbalance in Cancer Patients', which was full of very interesting lectures.

The course consisted of various topics, such as:

• Feeding tubes.
• Care and handling of the feeding tubes.
• Chemotherapy toxicity.
• Nutrition in children with stress.
• Toxicity of drugs in the pediatric area.
• Radiation toxicity.
• Immunonutrition in cancer patients.
• Oncological surgery and nutritional risk.
• Assessment of nutritional status in cancer patients.

For me the course was incredible, I liked all the topics, but the one that caught my attention was Immunonutrition.

This conference speaks of the use of various nutrients that can improve the health of patients with cancer and was also motivational for the area of nutrition. These nutrients include:

• Glutamine: It's the preferred energy substrate for cells with high proliferative capacity, such as intestinal epithelial cells, the immune system, the renal tubule and erythrocytes. Which they're damaged by chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
• Arginine: It has cytotoxic effects (expels various pathogenic microorganisms), and cytostatic (inhibit the growth of microorganisms). And generates nitric oxide also has tumoricidal function may eliminate tumor cells.
• Omega 3: It has an anti-inflammatory effect and stimulates the immune system function.
• Probiotics: They favor the formation of intestinal microbiota and is a trophic stimulation of gastrointestinal mucosa.

The immunonutrients are added to a complete diet, and depending on the patient can be supplied enteral, parenteral or oral.