Clinical Implications of Undernutrition in Childhood Cancer: A Single Centre Experience from a Developing Country

Introduction: Coexisting malnutrition is one of the known influencing factor of the survival rates in childhood cancer. Malnutrition contributes to poor immune function, altered drug metabolism—thereby causing drug toxicities and adverse clinical outcome. This study was done to assess the impact of undernutrition during treatment for childhood cancer, among the children diagnosed at our center. Methods: All children ≤18 years diagnosed with cancer between June 2011 and June 2019 treated at our institution were included in this study. Nutrition was assessed using body mass index (BMI) Z-score and a Z-score