Pilot Test for a Newly Developed Nutrition Screening Method: Pediatric Subjective Global Assessment

Pilot Test for a Newly Developed Nutrition Screening Method: Pediatric Subjective Global Assessment

Researchers are studying ways to predict if cancer patients are at risk for poor nutrition during their chemotherapy treatment. They hope to identify children with nutrition problems early in treatment. This may help prevent weight loss and other nutrition problems later in treatment.

The PEDSGA is a newly developed nutrition tool that includes a training manual that be used to teach health care professionals to identify at-risk patients by doing a nutrition physical exam. The PEDSGA also includes questions that the patient/caregiver answers regarding appetite, recent treatment, and activity level. This method of screening is new and may be able to identify at-risk patients better than the standard method. This study will use both methods and evaluate the two, in hope of determining which method works best to identify at-risk patients.

Inclusion Criteria:

• St. Jude Children's Research Hospital patient between 2 and 16 years of age who is actively receiving treatment for a hematologic or solid tumor malignancy
• Patient is not admitted to the transplant service
• Patient is able to read English or Spanish