The Impact of a Home Delivered Meal Service in Cancer Patients During Chemotherapy

Radboud University Medical Center

Status: Completed

Conditions: Malnutrition; Cancer

Treatments: Other: FoodforCare at home

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT03382171

2016-3044

Details and patient eligibility

About

Cancer patients receiving treatment such as chemotherapy experience a variety of symptoms that interfere with their appetite and their ability to eat and enjoy meals. Therefore, adapting meals in a way that responds to these symptoms might be a good strategy to improve patient satisfaction, nutritional status and hence, quality of life. In this vein, the investigators hypothesize that meals from FoodforCare at Home will contribute to the quality of life of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy when compared to usual care.

Full description

Cancer patients receiving treatment such as chemotherapy experience a variety of symptoms that interfere with their appetite and their ability to eat and enjoy meals. Several studies suggest that nutritional intake increases when the patient is satisfied about the quality of the meals. Therefore, adapting meals in a way that responds to these symptoms might be a good strategy to improve patient satisfaction, nutritional status and hence, quality of life. In this vein, the investigators hypothesize that meals from FoodforCare at Home will contribute to the quality of life of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy when compared to usual care. Also, the investigators expect that this strategy will have a positive effect on patient satisfaction, other nutrition-related issues, including nausea and vomiting, on nutritional intake per se and hence, on the nutritional status. Additional benefits might include reduced use of medication, especially anti-emetics.

Enrollment: 148 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• age 18 years or older
• diagnosed with cancer
• receiving chemotherapy according to a minimum schedule of every 2 weeks
• living within a 40 km radius around the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre
• written informed consent

Exclusion criteria

• renal insufficiency (MDRD-GFR (glomerular filtration rate) < 60ml/min and/or proteinuria)*

• dementia or any other condition which makes it impossible to fill out questionnaires correctly

• unable to understand or speak Dutch

• depending on artificial nutrition in the form of Oral Nutritional Supplements, tube feeding or total parenteral nutrition

• swallowing or passage problems

  • proteinuria is defined in case of a protein creatinine ratio > 0.5g/10mmol or an albuminuria > 300mg/day. This is checked by default before the start of chemotherapy by the treating physician to decide whether or not the patient is eligible for receiving chemotherapy.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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148 participants in 2 patient groups

FoodforCare group

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention group will receive meals from FoodforCare at Home. The FoodforCare at Home concept consists of five to six small protein and energy enriched meals that will be delivered twice a week. After an individual intake, the composition of the dishes will be tailored to the needs of the patient in terms of composition, diet, taste, flavor and portion size. Besides the meals, patients in the intervention group will also receive an information leaflet about the importance of protein during treatment and how to reach their protein requirements.

Treatment:

Other: FoodforCare at home

Usual care group

No Intervention group

Description:

The control group will continue their usual diet for 3 weeks and have no restrictions to their diet.