Factors Associated With Protein-energy Malnutrition in Chronic Liver Disease

We aimed to elucidate the incidence of protein–energy malnutrition (PEM) in patients with chronic liver disease and to identify factors linked to the presence of PEM. A total of 432 patients with chronic liver disease were analyzed in the current analysis. We defined patients with serum albumin level of ≤3.5 g/dL and nonprotein respiratory quotient (npRQ) value using indirect calorimetry less than 0.85 as those with PEM. We compared between patients with PEM and those without PEM in baseline characteristics and examined factors linked to the presence of PEM using univariate and multivariate analyses. There are 216 patients with chronic hepatitis, 123 with Child–Pugh A, 80 with Child–Pugh B, and 13 with Child–Pugh C. Six patients (2.8%) had PEM in patients with chronic hepatitis, 17 (13.8%) in patients with Child–Pugh A, 42 (52.5%) in patients with Child–Pugh B, and 10 (76.9%) in patients with Child–Pugh C ( P  < 0.001). Multivariate analysis revealed that Child–Pugh classification ( P  < 0.001), age ≥64 years ( P  = 0.0428), aspartate aminotransferase (AST) ≥40 IU/L ( P  = 0.0023), and branched-chain amino acid to tyrosine ratio (BTR) ≤5.2 ( P  = 0.0328) were independent predictors linked to the presence of PEM. On the basis of numbers of above risk factors (age, AST, and BTR), the proportions of patients with PEM were well stratified especially in patients with early chronic hepatitis or Child–Pugh A (n = 339, P  < 0.0001), while the proportions of patients with PEM tended to be well stratified in patients with Child–Pugh B or C (n = 93, P  = 0.0673). Age, AST, and BTR can be useful markers for identifying PEM especially in patients with early stage of chronic liver disease.