LB114 - ALTERED TASTE SENSITIVITY AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH APPETITE AND NUTRITIONAL RISK IN CANCER PATIENTS RECEIVING CHEMOTHERAPY

LB114

ALTERED TASTE SENSITIVITY AND ITS ASSOCIATION WITH APPETITE AND NUTRITIONAL RISK IN CANCER PATIENTS RECEIVING CHEMOTHERAPY

Y.-H. Kim¹, Y. W. Lee¹, R. Salian ¹, H. C. Chung², S. M. Lee^1,*

¹Food and Nutrition, ²Internal Medicine, Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea, Republic Of

Rationale: Alterations in taste sensitivity are frequently reported by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and may significantly compromise food intake, thereby adversely affecting nutritional status, treatment efficacy, and overall prognosis. However, there is limited evidence regarding the specific changes in taste recognition and detection, and their associations with appetite and nutritional status in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.

Methods: A total of 124 cancer patients aged ≥20 years, diagnosed with either breast cancer (BC, n = 75) or stomach cancer (SC, n = 49), were initially enrolled. After excluding withdrawals and losses to follow-up, 90 patients (50 BC, 40 SC) were included in the final analysis. Taste detection and recognition thresholds for the five basic tastes (sweet, salty, bitter, sour, umami), appetite (assessed by the Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire, SNAQ), and nutritional status (evaluated using the Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment, PG-SGA) were measured. Demographic and clinical variables including age, sex, BMI, body weight, and blood biochemical markers were also collected. Statistical analyses were performed using R (version 4.5.0). Paired t-tests were used for continuous variables, and the Kruskal–Wallis and Friedman tests were applied for group and time-point comparisons. Changes before and after chemotherapy were analyzed using a Generalized Linear Mixed Model (GLMM), and categorical variables were examined using chi-square, Fisher’s exact, or McNemar’s test, as appropriate. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Severance Hospital (IRB No. 4-2015-0753).

Results: According to PG-SGA classification, the combined proportion of malnourished patients (Class B and C) increased from 57.8% before chemotherapy to 84.3% during treatment, then slightly improved to 69.4% after treatment, suggesting that based on PG-SGA classification nutritional status worsens notably during chemotherapy, with only partial recovery observed post-treatment. Similarly, the proportion of patients with low appetite score (SNAQ ≤14) increased from 62.5% before chemotherapy to 80.4% during treatment, then decreased to 58.3% after chemotherapy. Prior to chemotherapy poorer nutritional status (PG-SGA) and reduced appetite (SNAQ) were significantly associated with elevated recognition thresholds (RT) for salty taste (PG-SGA: Estimate = 4.758, p = 0.014, R² = 0.227; SNAQ: Estimate = –12.10, p = 0.014, R² = 0.227) after adjusting for age and BMI. During chemotherapy, no significant associations were observed between changes in taste thresholds and PG-SGA scores. However, lower appetite was significantly associated with higher detection thresholds (DT) and RT for sweet taste (p < 0.001, R² = 0.449; p = 0.002, R² = 0.401), as well as RT for salty (p = 0.039, R² = 0.331), DT and RT for bitter (p < 0.001, R² = 0.479; p < 0.001, R² = 0.476), and DR and RT for sour tastes (p = 0.002, R² = 0.405; p < 0.001, R² = 0.54). These findings suggest that reduced taste sensitivity may contribute to diminished appetite during chemotherapy. After chemotherapy, higher sweet taste RT were significantly associated with poorer nutritional status (PG-SGA) in all patients (p = 0.0097, R² = 0.254). These findings suggest that impairment in sweet taste recognition may be a meaningful indicator of nutritional risk following cancer treatment.

Conclusion: Chemotherapy negatively affects both nutritional status and taste thresholds, with sweet, sour, salty and sour taste impairments, especially sweet taste recognition, persisting after treatment. These findings suggest that appetite and taste changes may be meaningful indicators of nutritional risk. Assessment of taste function—particularly salty taste for pre-chemotherapy and sweet taste for post-chemotherapy—may help identify cancer patient at risk of malnutrition to aid targeted nutritional care.

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Disclosure of Interest: None declared