Summary version of the Standards, Options and Recommendations for palliative or terminal nutrition in adults with progressive cancer (2001)

The majority of patients with advanced cancer develop malnutrition. This malnutrition has an important impact on quality of life, performance status and immune status. It can be responsible for increased morbidity, particularly infectious complications and thus mortality. In five to more than 20% of patients with cancer, death can be directly related to cachexia in the terminal phase ( Inagaki et al, 1974 ; Bozzetti, 1995 ).