Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Consistency between malnutrition defined by Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) and Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA) has not been thoroughly elucidated in patients with cancer. The study aimed to compare their consistency, and summarize the impact of malnutrition defined by GLIM on adverse outcomes. METHOD: PubMed, Embase, Cochrane library and Web of Science databases were searched from inception to May 1, 2024. Initially, the amalgamated sensitivity, specificity and area under curve (AUC) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated. Subsequently, hazard ratios (HR) or odd ratios (OR) and 95% CIs for overall survival (OS), all-cause mortality, postoperative complications, disease-free survival (DFS) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) were pooled. RESULT: Fifty-six studies (55,767 participants) were included. Compared with PG-SGA criteria, the overall sensitivity, specificity and area under curve (AUC) for GLIM was 0.71 (95% CI: 0.63-0.78), 0.80 (95% CI: 0.65-0.90) and 0.79 (95% CI: 0.75-0.83). Subgroup analysis revealed that the diagnostic value in Asian or among patients aged under 60 years were higher than non-Asian or those aged over 60 years. Moreover, GLIM-defined malnutrition was significantly associated with overall survival (OS) [hazard ratios (HR) = 1.57, 95% CI: 1.46-1.67], all-cause mortality (HR = 1.43, 95% CI: 1.29-1.57), postoperative complications [odd ratios (OR) = 1.57, 95% CI: 1.40-1.73], disease-free survival (DFS) (OR = 1.52, 95% CI: 1.36-1.68) and recurrence-free survival (RFS) (OR = 1.41, 95% CI: 1.10-1.72). CONCLUSION: GLIM criteria exhibit moderate diagnostic accuracy for identifying malnutrition among patients with cancer, when compared to the PG-SGA. This accuracy is pronounced in the Asian and patients under the age of 60. Furthermore, GLIM-defined malnutrition was significantly associated with OS, DFS, RFS, all-cause mortality and postoperative complication risks in patients with cancer.