Prognosis of advanced pancreatic cancer patients with reference to calorie intake.

Progressive weight loss and nutritional deterioration are commonly found in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. There have been few studies of whether nutritional support improves survival for these patients. We retrospectively investigated the relationship between calorie intake and survival in 50 patients who died from cancer. The survival period was calculated from the day when their serum albumin level measured < 3.0 mg/dl. Total calorie intake was calculated on the basis of diet and parenteral nutrition for the week before the day when serum albumin levels fell to < 3.0 mg/dl. Patients were divided into a low- and a high-calorie intake group using the median of calorie intake per predictive basal metabolism. The survival period was significantly longer for the high- than for the low-calorie intake group (median 50 vs. 32 days, p = 0.02). We also investigated the relationships between calories of parenteral nutrition and survival. High-calorie parenteral nutrition subgroups tended to survive longer than low-calorie parenteral nutrition subgroups irrespective of enteral nutrition. Sufficient calorie intake may have the potential to prolong survival for patients with advanced pancreatic cancer.