Association of nutritional indices and prognosis of stroke patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis

L.-F. Huang, M.-L. Zhu, Y.-R. Ye

Department of Geriatrics, Lishui Second People’s Hospital, Lishui, Zhejiang, China. lshuangping2096011@163.com

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• Cardiology
• Nutrition

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to document the association between malnutrition and mortality as well as functional outcomes in patients with stroke.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: PubMed, Embase and Scopus databases were systematically searched for observational studies that had used either of the three nutritional indices, geriatric nutritional risk index (GNRI), prognostic nutritional index (PNI), and controlling nutritional status score (CONUT), and examined the association between malnutrition and outcomes of interest in patients with stroke. The primary outcome was mortality and secondary outcomes were risk of recurrence and functional disability. Analysis was performed using STATA 16.0 software (College Station, TX, USA) and pooled effect sizes were reported as either hazards ratio (HR) or as odds ratio (OR). Random effects model was used for the analysis.

RESULTS: A total of 20 studies were included, of which, 15 were focused on acute ischemic stroke (AIS) patients. Among patients with AIS, moderate to severe malnutrition, assessed using CONUT (OR 4.80, 95% CI: 2.31, 9.98), GNRI (OR 3.57, 95% CI: 2.08, 6.12) and PNI (OR 8.10, 95% CI: 4.69, 14.0), was associated with increased risk of mortality within 3 months and at 1-year follow-up (CONUT: OR 2.74, 95% CI: 1.96, 3.83; GNRI: OR 2.26, 95% CI: 1.34, 3.81; PNI: OR 3.32, 95% CI: 2.24, 4.93). Patients with moderate to severe malnutrition, assessed using any of the three indices, had an increased risk of having an unfavourable outcome [modified Rankin Score (mRS) score of 3 to 6, denoting major disability and/or death] within 3 months and at 1-year follow-up. Only one study reported the risk of recurrence.

CONCLUSIONS: Assessing malnutrition in stroke patients at the time of hospital admission using any of the three nutritional indices is useful due to the observed association of malnutrition with survival and functional outcomes. However, due to a limited number of studies, there is a need for large prospective studies to validate the findings observed in this meta-analysis.

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