Estimation of body composition by bioelectrical impedance in cancer patients.

Measurement of body composition is important in the assessment of nutritional status in cancer patients. The purpose of this study was to validate the bioelectrical impedance (BI) method for body composition estimation in 33 elderly cancer patients (mean age 66 +/- 9 years) using the deuterium dilution technique (2H2O) as the reference method. Height2/Resistance (H2/R) correlated significantly with total body water (TBW) computed from 2H2O (r = 0.89, P less than 0.001; s.e.e. = 2.4 l). The prediction equation for TBW improved significantly (P less than 0.001) by addition of H2/R to the predictor variables weight, height, age and sex. We conclude that BI is a useful measure for the assessment of body composition in cancer patients.