Tions. Geriatric syndromes were those as described by Balducci et al[33] and nutritional status, was assessed using the body mass index (BMI) and The NSI checklist (Table 1)[20]. The checklist classified patients into low (0 to 2 points), moderate (3 to 5 points) and high nutritional risk (6 points) groups. Clinical parameters such as age, sex, stage, tumour types and selected laboratory tests (e.g. haemoglobin, albumin, renal panel, liver function tests) routinely available to treating clinicians were also collected.Statistical AnalysisDemographic and clinical characteristics between patients with and without moderate to high nutritional risk were compared. Categorical characteristics were compared using the Chisquare test of Fisher’s exact test as appropriate. Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare continuous characteristics between 2 groups of patients. Logistic regression models were fitted to estimate the odds ratios to assess the association of Tenapanor site various variables with moderate to high nutritional risk. Considering the large number of significant predictors from the univariatePLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0156008 May 27,3 /Nutritional Risk in Elderly Asian Cancer Patientsanalysis and to avoid model over-fitting, multivariate analyses were performed only on variables with p<0.01 from the univariate analysis. Forward selection, backward elimination and stepwise selection algorithms were applied to identify independent predictors. Goodness of fit between the observed and predicted number of outcomes of the multivariate model were assessed based on the Hosmer-Lemeshow test and its discrimination ability assessed based on the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC). The AUC was further internally validated based on 200 simulated datasets via bootstrapping to correct for over-fit bias. All p-values were 2 sided and a p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. All analyses were performed using SAS version 9.3 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC) and R 2.15.0 (http:// www.R-project.org).Results Patient CharacteristicsThis analysis included 249 patients with a median age of 77 (range 70?4). Majority of the patients were male (61.4 ) and of Chinese race (91.2 ). Gastrointestinal (GI) tract cancers were the primary tumor sites in 67.1 of patients followed by lung cancer (11.6 ) and genitourinary cancer (4.8 ). Most of the patients had late stage cancer (84.7 ) and poorer performance status of 2 or greater (66.7 ). Table 2 lists the patient characteristics.Patient characteristics by nutritional riskA significant proportion of patients (73.9 ) were at moderate to high nutritional risk. Compared with patients with low nutritional risk, there were significantly more patients with moderate to high nutritional risk who had primary tumour in the GI tract (73 vs 51 ), ECOG performance status 2? (76 vs 42 ), advanced stage of disease at diagnosis (90 vs 71 ), depression based on geriatric depression scale (36 vs 6 ), low MMSE scores (< 24 points) (38 vs 17 ), imposed mild to severe burden to their caregivers (27 vs 11 ), had more than 4 prescribed drugs (66 vs 44 ) and the presence of geriatric syndromes (69 vs 37 ) (all p < 0.02). Patients with moderate to high nutritional risk also had significantly lower median BMI values (20.9 vs 23.7), haemoglobin levels (11.1 vs 12.5 g/dL), and AZD-8055 chemical information albumin levels (29.0 vs 34.0 g/L) (all p < 0.001).Table 1. The Nutrition Screening Initiative Checklist. Statement I have an i.Tions. Geriatric syndromes were those as described by Balducci et al[33] and nutritional status, was assessed using the body mass index (BMI) and The NSI checklist (Table 1)[20]. The checklist classified patients into low (0 to 2 points), moderate (3 to 5 points) and high nutritional risk (6 points) groups. Clinical parameters such as age, sex, stage, tumour types and selected laboratory tests (e.g. haemoglobin, albumin, renal panel, liver function tests) routinely available to treating clinicians were also collected.Statistical AnalysisDemographic and clinical characteristics between patients with and without moderate to high nutritional risk were compared. Categorical characteristics were compared using the Chisquare test of Fisher's exact test as appropriate. Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare continuous characteristics between 2 groups of patients. Logistic regression models were fitted to estimate the odds ratios to assess the association of various variables with moderate to high nutritional risk. Considering the large number of significant predictors from the univariatePLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0156008 May 27,3 /Nutritional Risk in Elderly Asian Cancer Patientsanalysis and to avoid model over-fitting, multivariate analyses were performed only on variables with p<0.01 from the univariate analysis. Forward selection, backward elimination and stepwise selection algorithms were applied to identify independent predictors. Goodness of fit between the observed and predicted number of outcomes of the multivariate model were assessed based on the Hosmer-Lemeshow test and its discrimination ability assessed based on the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve (AUC). The AUC was further internally validated based on 200 simulated datasets via bootstrapping to correct for over-fit bias. All p-values were 2 sided and a p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. All analyses were performed using SAS version 9.3 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC) and R 2.15.0 (http:// www.R-project.org).Results Patient CharacteristicsThis analysis included 249 patients with a median age of 77 (range 70?4). Majority of the patients were male (61.4 ) and of Chinese race (91.2 ). Gastrointestinal (GI) tract cancers were the primary tumor sites in 67.1 of patients followed by lung cancer (11.6 ) and genitourinary cancer (4.8 ). Most of the patients had late stage cancer (84.7 ) and poorer performance status of 2 or greater (66.7 ). Table 2 lists the patient characteristics.Patient characteristics by nutritional riskA significant proportion of patients (73.9 ) were at moderate to high nutritional risk. Compared with patients with low nutritional risk, there were significantly more patients with moderate to high nutritional risk who had primary tumour in the GI tract (73 vs 51 ), ECOG performance status 2? (76 vs 42 ), advanced stage of disease at diagnosis (90 vs 71 ), depression based on geriatric depression scale (36 vs 6 ), low MMSE scores (< 24 points) (38 vs 17 ), imposed mild to severe burden to their caregivers (27 vs 11 ), had more than 4 prescribed drugs (66 vs 44 ) and the presence of geriatric syndromes (69 vs 37 ) (all p < 0.02). Patients with moderate to high nutritional risk also had significantly lower median BMI values (20.9 vs 23.7), haemoglobin levels (11.1 vs 12.5 g/dL), and albumin levels (29.0 vs 34.0 g/L) (all p < 0.001).Table 1. The Nutrition Screening Initiative Checklist. Statement I have an i.
