Prevalence of Poor Nutrition in Knee Osteoarthritis Patients: A Hospital-Based Cohort Study in Indian Population

Purpose Malnourished adults with knee osteoarthritis (OA) have a lower propensity for physical activities, leading to post-surgical stress and poorer clinic-functional outcomes. The study is aimed to propose an integrative screening procedure for patients and to identify a subset of patients who are undernourished or at risk of undernutrition in the Indian population. Methods A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted at a tertiary care, a university-level teaching hospital for seven months, which included knee OA patients above the age of 45 years, and the following criteria were evaluated anthropometric measurement and blood biochemical parameters and nutritional scoring system. Results The current study reports a high prevalence of malnutrition (69.5%) in patients with knee OA in the Indian population based on blood biochemical levels, and late presenters are associated with poor nutritional status of an individual. A single gold standard blood biochemical test, serum albumin alone, reports many malnourished individuals in the population, and the remaining blood biochemical parameters may not yield any additional information. Mini nutritional assessment, mid-arm circumference, and mid-calf circumference are poor predictors of malnutrition, and we need a revised cut-off for our group of patients. Conclusion In the cohort of OA Knee, the prevalence of malnutrition is high (69.5%) in the Indian population. Serum Albumin is the best parameter to detect the presence of malnutrition preoperatively, and MNS is not applicable to detect malnutrition in our subset of patients. The study recommends routinely measuring serum albumin levels in all patients to correct the nutritional abnormality preoperatively, resulting in better surgical outcomes and reduced post-operatively complications. Level of evidence IV.