Short-term effects of preoperative nutritional intervention in lung surgery for malignant tumors: a single-center prospective study

Preoperative malnutrition is a risk factor for postoperative morbidity and mortality in patients with lung cancer. Assessing the preoperative nutritional status should be considered essential for patients scheduled to undergo lung surgery. This prospective study aimed to investigate whether preoperative nutritional intervention improves the nutritional conditions and short-term postoperative outcomes.

The primary endpoints included safety, feasibility and short-term therapeutic efficacy of preoperative nutritional intervention. Patients with clinical stage I–III non-small cell lung cancer (histologically proven or suspected) were screened. Patient enrollment was conducted between January 2021 and December 2022. A total of 15 patients were included in the analysis. Patients with a preoperative prognostic nutritional index of < 45 were considered eligible. All participants received preoperative nutritional intervention. The trajectories of prognostic nutritional index and the incidence of postoperative complication rates in the intervention group were investigated.

No adverse events were observed during the nutritional intervention. The pre-intervention and post-intervention prognostic nutritional indices were 42.2 (39.8–44.5), and 43.1 (41.4–45.9), respectively (p = 0.04). The postoperative complication rate was 26.7% (n = 15).

This is the first prospective study to report the preoperative trajectories of prognostic nutritional index in patients undergoing lung cancer surgery. Our results suggest the safety and feasibility of preoperative nutritional intervention. Further research, such as randomized clinical trials, is warranted to investigate clinical efficacy and optimal nutritional interventions for lung surgery for malignant tumors.