ONCOLOGY
Nutrition:
Cancer and Patient Care
Dr Anthony Zambelli BSc(Hons) BVSc DiplSenMgmt MMedVet(Med),
Email: [email protected] Tel: 031 762 1816
Inanda Veterinary Hospital & Specialist Referrals
Key Points
• Malignancy creates profound metabolic changes in patients, which can persist into remission
• Treatments and dietary manipulation can blunt or exaggerate these metabolic alterations
• A cancer treatment plan that does not address dietary issues is incomplete and harms patient
welfare and outcomes
• It appears that a high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate, moderate insoluble fibre diet high in ω3
fatty acids is ideal for cancer patients
Introduction
The management of a veterinary cancer patient may
include one or more of: surgery (sometimes quite aggressive), chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy as well as control of concurrent illnesses (comorbidities) that influence overall health e.g. obesity,
osteoarthritis, organ dysfunction (e.g. kidney or cardiac disease). The veterinarian embarking on even the
most basic oncotherapy should include a nutritional
needs assessment as part of the minimum database,
and manage the patient’s needs on an ongoing basis.
This recognises the profound and fundamental influences a malignancy has on metabolism and thus the
response to treatment. A basic understanding of cancer nutritional metabolic pathology is adequate but
necessary to manage this class of patient.
Cancer and metabolism in a nutshell
Various cancers have been demonstrated to affect
the patient’s metabolism in manifold ways. It is safe to
say that all malignancies can be underfed or misfed,
and any the minority are properly fed. Although can-
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