Nutrition, cancer, and intravenous hyperalimentation.

In over 1000 cancer patients treated with intravenous hyperalimentation (IVH), tumor growth has not been identified and catheter-related sepsis has been minimal. Studies in rats demonstrated that the host benefits more than the tumor during nutritional repletion, and any stimulation of tumor growth in the rat-tumor model could be manipulated with DNA specific drugs to benefit the host. A study of 65 malnourished cancer patients undergoing oncologic therapy and treated with IVH indicated that much of the immune suppression in these patients was the result of malnutrition coincident with or secondary to oncologic treatment. Conclusions reached in this study were that nutritional repletion resulted in a return of skin test reactivity, proper wound healing in the surgical patient, and possibly an increase in response to chemotherapy. Certainly, the use of IVH allowed specific oncologic therapy to be administered to a group of malnourished patients who otherwise might not have been acceptable candidates for intensive antineoplastic therapy.