Food and Nutrition Sciences, 2015, 6, 75-82 Published Online January 2015 in SciRes. http://www.scirp.org/journal/fns http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/fns.2015.61009 How to cite this paper: Cunha, S.F.C., Tanaka, L.S., Salomão, R.G., Macedo, D.M., Santos, T.D. and Peria, F.M. (2015) Nutri- tional Screening in a University Hospital: Comparison between Oncologic and Non-Oncologic Patients. Food and Nutrition Sciences, 6, 75-82. http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/fns.2015.61009 Nutritional Screening in a University Hospital: Comparison between Oncologic and Non-Oncologic Patients Selma F. C. Cunha 1* , Lidiane S. Tanaka 2 , Roberta G. Salomão 2 , Danielle M. Macedo 2 , Thatiane D. Santos 2 , Fernanda M. Peria 3 1 Division of Clinical Nutrition, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil 2 Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition Team of Clinical Hospital, School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil 3 Division of Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine of Ribeirao Preto, University of Sao Paulo, Ribeirao Preto, Brazil Email: * sfreire@fmrp.usp.br Received 29 November 2014; accepted 9 January 2015; published 13 January 2015 Copyright © 2015 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Abstract Background & Aims: We compared the screening nutritional data of patients with malignant and non-malignant disease, and classified their nutritional risk according to the primary tumor’s site. Methods: Subjective Global Assessment was applied to 3008 patients within 48 h of admission to a public university. Subjects were divided into Oncologic Group (n = 576) or Non-Oncologic Group (n = 2432) according to the presence of neoplasms or other diseases respectively. These data were compared by the t-student test and classic chi-square test, with statistical significance set at p < 0.05. Results: The Oncologic Group presented a higher prevalence of weight loss (60.3% vs. 49.3%), quan- titative (40.7% vs. 28.5%) and qualitative (16.4% vs. 7.6%) alterations in the food intake pattern, gastrointestinal symptoms and muscle waste (23.2% vs. 13.2%) as compared to the Non-Oncologic Group. Also, there was a higher prevalence of nutritional disturbances in the Oncologic Group, with 49.5% of the subjects moderately (or suspected to be malnourished) and 12.7% severely mal- nourished. Severe malnourishment was mainly observed in patients with head and neck (25%), up- per digestive tract (21.9%) and soft tissue and bones (17.9%) tumors. Conclusion: When compared to other hospitalized patients, patients with neoplastic disease were in higher nutritional risk. Keywords Nutritional Screening, Malnutrition, Subjective Global Assessment, Hospital Setting, Neoplasia * Corresponding author.