Objectives: Very few reports thus far have clinically elucidated the advantages of a nutrition support
team (NST) in the field of liver diseases. The present study retrospectively analyzed whether
nutrition therapy for liver cirrhosis (LC), performed by a multidisciplinary team that includes
registered dieticians, improves survival rates.
Methods: In study 1, we compared survival rates between two groups of patients with LC to
elucidate the effects of nutrition management by registered dieticians. The first group was
comprised of 101 patients that received no dietary counseling from a dietician, and the second
group was comprised of 133 patients that received nutritional counseling following nutrition
assessment. In study 2, we split the patients who received nutritional counseling in study 1 into
two groups and compared their survival rates with the objective of investigating the effects of a
multidisciplinary team approach on survival rate. The first group was comprised of 51 patients that,
in addition to regular nutritional counseling given by a dietician, regularly attended courses on
liver disease given every 3 to 6 mo. The second group was comprised of 82 patients that did not
attend the liver-disease courses.
Results: During study 1, 34 patients in the first group and 20 patients in the second group died,
representing a significant difference (P < 0.05). This difference was even more pronounced in the
subset of patients classified as Child-Pugh class A (P < 0.01), but no differences were seen among
patients in classes B and C (P ¼ 0.378). During study 2, four patients in the first group and 15
patients in the second group died, representing a significant difference (P < 0.05).
Conclusions: This study showed that nutritional intervention using a multidisciplinary team during
the treatment of LC improves survival rates and quality of life of the patients.