Abstract

Author(s): Jáquez Taveras, Anayanet María

Introduction: Malnutrition is common in patients with scleroderma, particularly in patients with gastrointestinal manifestations. Multiple studies demonstrate the usefulness of oral supplementation in patients with some degree of malnutrition or nutritional risk.

Objective: Assess the prevalence of undernutrition in the study population and the effectiveness of nutritional intervention with dietary recommendations and oral nutritional supplementation on nutritional status in ambulatory patients with scleroderma Regional University Hospital Jose Maria Cabral y Baez (Dominican Republic).

Method: The nutritional status of patients diagnosed with scleroderma was determined with Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) and the determination of anthropometric measurements (weight, height and Body Mass Index). All patients identified by the tool or by Body Mass Index (<18.4kg / m2) with some degree of malnutrition or nutritional risk underwent a nutritional regime based on dietary recommendations and oral nutritional supplementation with a polymer hyper protein nutritional formula for 3 months, with weekly monitoring of its development and adherence to the regime and were reevaluated with Subjective Global Assessment and the anthropometric measurements already mentioned at the end of three months.

Results: Nutritional intervention for three months with nutritional dietary recommendations and oral supplementation significantly improved the nutritional status of patients with scleroderma, availing ourselves of the Subjective Global Assessment as a tool for nutritional assessment at the beginning and end of this intervention (3 months) we identify that the nutritional status of patients improved significantly after the 3 months and from a 17% (n = 1) of the population well-nourished (SGA-A) at the beginning, we ascended to an 83% (n = 5 ), leaving only one patient in mild malnutrition. In terms of body weight and BMI patients showed improvement with the reduction of the population in low weight of 72% to 66%, reducing the population especially in severely underweight.At the end of this study, 100% of the population had eliminated gastrointestinal manifestations, which is important since they are directly related to nutritional risk and increased morbidity and mortality in this population.

Discussion: Nutritional intervention with specific nutritional dietary recommendations and oral supplementation can rapidly improve the nutritional status of outpatients with scleroderma, reducing gastrointestinal symptoms and improving their anthropometric measures in a three months period.

Conclusion: Nutritional intervention for three months with nutritional recommendation and oral supplementation improves the nutritional status of patients with scleroderma, improving anthropometric parameters achieving an increase of up to 2.08 kilograms of average weight, eliminating gastrointestinal symptoms and improving quality of life in outpatients.