To investigate the effect of nutritional intervention upon the clinical efficacy of chemoradiotherapy in patients diagnosed with esophageal carcinoma.

A total of 46 patients who were diagnosed with esophageal cancer in Anhui Cancer Hospital from November 2016 to August 2017 were enrolled in this prospective study. All patients were randomly and evenly divided into the nutritional intervention (NI) and routine treatment (RT) groups. The changes in body mass index (BMI), PG-SGA, serum albumin (ALB), hemoglobin (HB), white blood cell (WBC) and other objective nutritional parameters and the incidence of chemoradiotherapy-induced complications were recorded before and after chemoradiotherapy.

Prior to chemoradiotherapy, age, sex, BMI, ALB, PLT and clinical staging did not significantly differ between two groups (all P>0.05). In the NI group, the BMI was (21.52±2.67) after chemoradiotherapy, significantly higher than (21.13±2.73) before radiotherapy (P=0.000). Moreover, the PG-SGA score after chemoradiotherapy was significantly lower compared with that before chemoradiotherapy (P=0.000). In the RT group, the BMI, Hb, ALB, PLT and WBC after chemoradiotherapy were significantly lower than those before radiotherapy, and thePG-SGA score was worse after chemoradiotherapy (all P<0.05). In the NI group, the incidence of grade 3 myelosuppression was 4.34%, significantly lower than 8.68% in the RT group (P=0.000).

Patients with esophageal cancer treated with chemoradiotherapy have a high nutritional risk. Nutritional intervention can improve the nutritional status, reduce the incidence of chemoradiotherapy-induced complications, and probably improve the quality of life and clinical prognosis.

Nutritional intervention; Oral nutritional supplement; Esophageal neoplasms/radiotherapy; Prognosis