Nutritional intervention for the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma chemoradiotherapy patients: A meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: To conduct a meta-analysis to investigate the effects of different nutritional interventions on various serum nutritional indicators and patients’ prognosis during radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, to assess treatment safety and efficacy. METHODS: A systematic literature search, mainly randomized controlled trials (RCTs), on the effects of nutritional support on patients undergoing radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma was conducted between January 2010 and August 2022 using databases such as China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang Database, Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Embase. Risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Rob2 scale. The meta-analysis was performed using Stata 17.0 software, and the heterogeneity between studies was assessed using the I(2) test, and funnel plots were used to qualitatively assess publication bias. RESULTS: Overall, 10 RCTs with a total sample size of 879 cases were identified. The meta-analysis results showed that body mass index (BMI) (odds ratio = 0.026, 95% confidence interval([1]): −0.348 to 0.401, P > .05), albumin (standardized mean difference [SMD] = 0.13, 95% CI: −0.127 to 0.387, P > .05), and total protein levels were not significantly different between the nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) radiotherapy group with nutritional support group (SMD = −0.262, 95% CI: −1.062 to 0.537, P > .05) and the control group; pre-albumin (SMD = 0.256, 95% CI: 0.022–0.491, P = .032), hemoglobin (SMD = 0.436, 95% CI: 0.26–0.612, P < .000), and lymphocyte count (SMD = 1.125, 95% CI: 0.868–1.381, P < .000) were significantly higher in the nutritional intervention group than in the control group. CONCLUSION: Compared with conventional diets, nutritional interventions can improve serum nutritional parameters, nutritional status, treatment tolerance, and prognosis of patients undergoing radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.