Alison Burton Shepherd
Vocare Group, UK
Title: The Importance of optimizing nutritional status in patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy
Biography
Biography: Alison Burton Shepherd
Abstract
Chemo-radiotherapy (CRT) causes or exacerbates symptoms, such as alteration or loss of taste, mucositis, xerostomia, fatigue, nausea and vomiting, with consequent worsening of malnutrition. It is well known that radiotherapy is invariably associated with mucositis, xerostomia, dysphagia, haematological toxicities and other acute side effects, whose incidence increases when chemotherapy is also administered, and that oral mucositis incidence leads to higher unplanned breaks and delays in radiotherapy administration. In addition, in many patients such toxicities may be very severe and even life threatening and may lead to treatment interruptions that are invariably associated with poorer outcome.
This presentation will review best practice in the nutritional management of patients undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy