Objective
The association between the Global Leadership Initiative on Malnutrition (GLIM) criteria and quality of life (QoL), and its comparative performance relative to other nutritional assessment tools, remains unclear in patients with gastric cancer (GC). This study aimed to examine the associations between GLIM (with and without Nutritional Risk Screening 2002 [NRS 2002]), Patient-Generated Subjective Global Assessment (PG-SGA), and NRS 2002 alone with QoL outcomes.
Methods
In this cross-sectional study, 394 hospitalized adults with GC were assessed for malnutrition and QoL. Data were collected through patient self-report. Hierarchical multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the contribution of different malnutrition definitions to QoL.
Results
After adjustment, models incorporating GLIM with NRS 2002 (ΔR 2 = 0.02; adjusted R 2 = 0.15-0.18) demonstrated contributions comparable to models incorporating PG-SGA (ΔR 2 = 0.02; adjusted R 2 = 0.15-0.18) and NRS 2002 alone (ΔR 2 = 0.03 and 0.02; adjusted R 2 = 0.16-0.19) for global health status/QoL and role functioning. GLIM without NRS 2002 was not significantly associated with these outcomes. GLIM with NRS 2002 (ΔR 2 = 0.03; adjusted R 2 = 0.25) also showed slightly higher explanatory value than GLIM without screening (ΔR 2 = 0.01 and 0.02; adjusted R 2 = 0.23-0.24) for physical functioning.
Conclusions
GLIM within the recommended two-step framework demonstrated associations with QoL comparable to PG-SGA and NRS 2002 alone, whereas GLIM without prior screening showed weaker associations. These findings support a structured nutritional assessment approach in GC.