Protein for the Pre-Surgical Cancer Patient: a Narrative Review

Current landscape and support for practical initiation of oncological prehabilitation translatable to thyroid cancer: A position paper

Despite a growing body of evidence for the effectiveness of prehabilitation, the uptake of prehabilitation in Europe remains low. Contributing factors range from limited awareness and understanding of prehabilitation to a lack of supporting infrastructure and reimbursement challenges. In this position paper, the authors propose a new comprehensive definition of prehabilitation and identify differentiated thyroid cancer as a type of cancer particularly well-suited for prehabilitation. To support clinicians with the implementation of prehabilitation programs in their clinics, the authors discuss the following practical solutions: a) find the most appropriate prehabilitation program for each patient; b) raise awareness among peers; c) develop evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of prehabilitation; d) expand the interdisciplinary team; e) expand your network and make use of existing assets; f) utilize learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prehabilitation: Who can benefit?

Prehabilitation is an intervention that occurs between cancer diagnosis and the start of an acute treatment. It involves physical, nutritional, and psychological assessments to establish a baseline functional level and provide targeted interventions to improve a person's health and prevent future impairments. Prehabilitation has been applied to surgical oncology and has shown positive results at improving functional capacity, reducing hospital stay, decreasing complications, and enhancing health-related quality of life. The importance of collaboration between various healthcare professionals and the implementation of multimodal interventions, including exercise training, nutrition optimization, and emotional support is discussed in this manuscript. The need for screening and assessment of conditions such as sarcopenia, frailty, or low functional status in order to identify patients who would benefit the most from prehabilitation is vital and should be a part of all prehabilitation programs. Exercise and nutrition play complementary roles in prehabilitation, enhancing anabolism and performance. However, in the presence of malnutrition and sarcopenia, exercise-related energy expenditure without sufficient protein intake can lead to muscle wasting and further deterioration of functional capacity, thus special emphasis on nutrition and protein intake should be made in these cases. Finally, the challenges and the need for a paradigm shift in perioperative care are discussed to effectively implement personalized prehabilitation programs.

Nutritional aspects of prehabilitation in adults with cirrhosis awaiting liver transplant

Malnutrition, sarcopenia (low muscle mass), and physical frailty have gained increasing recognition in candidates for liver transplant (LT) as these conditions can impact postoperative functional capacity. Multidimensional prehabilitation programs have been proposed as a safe intervention in adults awaiting LT but the nutritional pillar of prehabilitation has been understudied. This review summarizes the nutritional recommendations for prehabilitation for individuals with cirrhosis awaiting LT. Three major aspects of nutritional prehabilitation are discussed: (1) Assess: Evaluate nutritional status and assess for malnutrition, sarcopenia, and frailty to guide the nutritional prehabilitation intervention intensity, increasing across universal, targeted, and specialist levels; (2) Intervene: Prescribe a nutritional prehabilitation intervention to meet established nutrition guidelines in cirrhosis with a targeted focus on improving nutritional status and muscle health; (3) Reassess: Follow-up based on the required intensity of nutritional care with as needed intervention adjustment. Topics covered in the review include nutritional care levels for prehabilitation, energy prescriptions across body mass index strata, detailed considerations around protein intake (amount, distribution, and quality), carbohydrate and fat intake, other nutritional considerations, and the potential role of dietary supplements and nutraceuticals. Future research is warranted to more accurately evaluate energy needs, evaluate emerging dietary supplementation strategies, and establish the role of nutraceuticals alongside food-based interventions. While the general principles of nutritional prehabilitation are ready for immediate application, future large-scale randomized controlled trials in this space will help to quantify the benefit that can be gained by transitioning the LT approach from passive "transplant waitlist time" to active "transplant preparation time."

Demystifying Malnutrition to Improve Nutrition Screening and Assessment in Oncology

OBJECTIVE

Patients with cancer and malnutrition are more likely to experience poor treatment tolerance, prolonged length of hospital stay, and decreased quality of life. Early and sustained nutrition risk screening is the first step to tackling this patient and health care burden. Yet, malnutrition remains largely overlooked and undertreated. Malnutrition mismanagement could be indicative of a systemic misunderstanding. With this narrative review, we aimed to (1) define malnutrition, (2) address common malnutrition misconceptions, and (3) summarize nutrition recommendations for patients with cancer.

DATA SOURCES

PubMed and international clinical practice guidelines were used.

CONCLUSION

Malnutrition represents an unbalanced nutritional state that alters body composition and diminishes function. Malnutrition is not always physically obvious, and albumin is not a reliable marker of nutritional status; therefore, systematically screening all patients with a validated nutrition risk screening tool at time of cancer diagnosis, and periodically throughout treatment, is necessary to provide optimal, equitable care. Nutrition risk screening takes less than 1 minute to complete and can be completed by any health care professional. Patients that screen positive for nutrition risk should be referred to a registered nutritionist or dietitian for comprehensive nutritional assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE

All health care professionals can and should be responsible for preventing and treating malnutrition. Registered nurses can actively participate in improving patient outcomes by screening patients for nutrition risk, weighing patients at every visit, referring patients to dietitians for nutrition treatment, and providing supportive medical management of nutrition impact symptoms such as nausea.

Prehabilitation. An Interdisciplinary Patient-Centric Conceptual Framework

OBJECTIVES

To review the recent literature around patient-centric prehabilitation in oncology patients and propose a conceptual framework to inform development of interdisciplinary prehabilitation services leading to focused, individualized prehabilitation interventions.

DATA SOURCES

A review of recent peer-reviewed literature, national guidance, and government strategy on prehabilitation in oncology patients.

CONCLUSION

Patient- centric prehabilitation is key to improving patient's experiences of cancer throughout the cancer journey while improving population health and reducing financial costs. Successful personalized prehabilitation interventions are comprised of an interplay between individual interdisciplinary roles, as illustrated in the conceptual framework. The role of the nurse underpins this whole process in patient screening, assessment, implementation of the intervention, and patient reassessment, ensuring care is dynamic and tailored to patient need.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE

The review has discussed the key role that nurses play in the process but warrants more research in the area. The conceptual framework provides a basis to develop interdisciplinary prehabilitation services underpinned by the nurse's role. The review advocates the use of educational interventions to equip all health professionals with prehabilitation knowledge to enable interdisciplinary prehabilitation services to be developed.

Tailoring prehabilitation to address the multifactorial nature of functional capacity for surgery

Mounting evidence suggests that recovery begins before the surgical incision. The pre-surgery phase of recovery - the preparation for optimal surgical recovery - can be reinforced with prehabilitation. Prehabilitation is the approach of enhancing the functional capacity of the individual to enable them to withstand a stressful event. With this narrative review, we apply the Wilson & Cleary conceptual model of patient outcomes to specify the complex and integrative relationship of health factors that limit functional capacity before surgery. To have the greatest impact on patient outcomes, prehabilitation programs require individualized and coordinated care from medical, nutritional, psychosocial, and exercise services. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Prehabilitation, enhanced recovery after surgery, or both? A narrative review

This narrative review presents a biological rationale and evidence to describe how the preoperative condition of the patient contributes to postoperative morbidity. Any preoperative condition that prevents a patient from tolerating the physiological stress of surgery (e.g. poor cardiopulmonary reserve, sarcopaenia), impairs the stress response (e.g. malnutrition, frailty), and/or augments the catabolic response to stress (e.g. insulin resistance) is a risk factor for poor surgical outcomes. Prehabilitation interventions that include exercise, nutrition, and psychosocial components can be applied before surgery to strengthen physiological reserve and enhance functional capacity, which, in turn, supports recovery through attaining surgical resilience. Prehabilitation complements Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) care to achieve optimal patient outcomes because recovery is not a passive process and it begins preoperatively.