Risk of Malnutrition in Patients With Pancreatic Cancer

In this review we focused on the assessment of malnutrition risk in patients with pancreatic cancer (PaC), emphasizing its relationships with patients' characteristics and clinical outcomes. Despite the profound impact of PaC and its treatments on nutritional status, malnutrition risk in PaC patients has received less attention than it deserves, and the use of screening tools in clinical practice remains inconsistent. We conducted literature searches in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Full-text searches combined the terms "malnutrition AND risk" or "nutritional AND risk" or "nutritional screening" or "malnutrition screening" with "pancreatic OR pancreas." A variety of screening tools have been applied in PaC patients, primarily before curative surgery. Reported prevalence of malnutrition risk varied widely, and higher risk was consistently associated with adverse short- and long-term outcomes, including post-operative complications, longer hospital stay, poor tolerance to chemotherapy, and reduced survival. Comparative studies evaluating the reliability and prognostic performance of different tools remain limited. Further evidence is needed to define optimal approaches for assessing malnutrition risk in PaC patients, to evaluate the impact of nutritional interventions, and to integrate malnutrition screening into standard nutritional care protocols. Future studies should focus on identifying optimal risk cut-off values, monitoring changes in nutritional risk over the course of disease, and determining the most reliable tools for different clinical settings.