Nutritional Testing Improves Patient Outcomes

Studies show that nutritional testing of incoming hospital patients, not a standard practice in most hospitals, can affect the patient's quality of care, length of stay, and incidence of complications. It also helps to reduce costs.

A study at Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center (Houma, LA, USA) found that as many as 65% of hospitalized patients were malnourished as defined by low protein levels. As a result, the center began prealbumin testing of each surgical, intensive care, and medicine patient. This practice decreased each patient's length of stay from 2-10 days and decreased pharmaceutical costs for nutritional products and supplements, as nutritional intervention began to take effect.

In previous studies, prealbumin has been shown to be a sensitive indicator of protein-calorie malnutrition. It is commonly used as a nutritional marker because its rapid turnover rate provides a timely picture of a change in dietary status. Prealbumin is also a useful prognostic indicator in surgical patients and can assess the adequacy of replacement through total parenteral nutrition. The previous marker of choice was albumin, but with a half-life of 21 days, it is not a good indicator of recent protein-level changes and is affected by many nonnutritional factors. The prealbumin test used in the study at Leonard J. Chart Medical Center was performed on the Array 360CE protein system of Beckman Counter (Fullerton, CA, USA).

"It's a highly sensitive test--and the best routine marker available to identify and monitor nutritional assessment,” said Elia Mears, director of laboratory services at the Leonard J. Chabert Medical Center.