Body weight recovery, eating difficulties and compliance with dietary advice in the first year after stem cell transplantation: a prospective study

Among healthcare professionals there is no consensus about the best policy to increase oral intake and promote recovery in the post-hospital phase after bone marrow or blood stem cell transplantation. In order to evaluate body weight recovery and compliance with dietary advice among these patients, we performed a prospective longitudinal study in the first year post transplant. At five time intervals (days 50, 75, 125, 200 and 350) patients received a nutritional questionnaire with items on nutrition-related symptoms, physical condition, body weight recovery and compliance with dietary advice. From the initial cohort of 135 patients 69 completed the study. Prevalence of eating difficulties was high (66 % at day 50). Anorexia, dry mouth, altered taste, nausea and tiredness were the symptoms most strongly associated with eating difficulties. Compliance with dietary advice was poor. Conditioning regimen was found to be a prognostic factor for body weight status at day 350. In more than 50% of the TBI-treated patients body weight was not restored to 95% of the pretreatment value within 1 year after transplant. Future studies should focus on increasing energy and protein intake in the TBI-treated subgroup.