Screening for malnutrition in people living with cancer and overweight or obesity: A scoping review

Summary: Background: Current approaches to malnutrition screening in cancer pathways may not identify malnutrition in people living with overweight or obesity. The review aims to identify current screening techniques and their potential validity in people living overweight or obesity and cancer. Methods: PubMed, Medline and CINAHL were searched for English-language publications reporting data from malnutrition screening tools in adults with cancer living with overweight or obesity. These included 1) diagnostic accuracy studies with validity analysis against a reference, 2) comparative studies, without validity analysis, and 3) monomethod studies of single malnutrition screening tools. Registered in Open Science Framework. (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/ZWFBM). Results: 3705 records were identified with 16 full-text papers included. Eleven tools and measures were used to screen for malnutrition in people living with overweight or obesity and cancer. These included questionnaires (Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool; Malnutrition Screening Tool; Patient Generated Subjective Global Assessment (original/Short Form); Nutrition Risk Screening-2002; Short Nutritional Assessment Questionnaire and its variations; Mini Nutrition Assessment-Short Form), an algorithm-based tool (Nutrition Risk Index), and handgrip strength measures. Discussion: There is a lack of consensus on the most appropriate tool, though combining subjective and objective measures may improve malnutrition screening in people with cancer and overweight or obesity.