Nutritional support for cancer patients includes several aspects. The most central are
identification of patients who are at risk to become or who are already malnourished;
dietary advice to patient and family; information and education of all staff involved in
the care of the patient, at the hospital and at home; drugs and other interventions to
relieve symptoms preventing adequate food intake, as well as a variety of intensive
interventions like enteral and parenteral supplies of nutrition. It appears today as if an
increased energy intake is insufficient to stop weight loss among cancer patients and to
achieve weight gain. Several attempts have been made to use possible anti-cachectic
and appetite stimulating drugs (1). Earlier nutritional support was often synonymous
with parenteral or even total parenteral nutrition. Nutritional deficiencies were often
not properly recognised until the terminal stage of the disease, when such development
can not be reversed. As many as 20% of patients with cancer die from the effects of
malnutrition rather than the malignancy itself (1).