放射治療之癌患對食物禁忌的調查

A Survey of Tabooed Foods in Cancer Patients Undergoing Radiation Therapy

陳玉萍(Y.P. Chen) ； 曾振淦(C.K. Tseng) ； 湯國政(G.J. Tang) ； 洪志宏(J.H. Hong) ； 曾雁明(N.M. Tsang)

《放射治療與腫瘤學》 10卷3期 (2003/09) Pp. 137-140

https://doi.org/10.6316/TRO/200310(3)137

摘要

Purpose : to evaluate factors related to tabooed foods in cancer patients and to study the motivation and concept of tabooed foods from patients?view point so that patients may accept correct knowledge about diet control and nutritional support via a positive communication skill.
Materials and Methods : From November of 1997 to October of 1999, data from 872 irradiated cancer patients were collected at Dept. of Radiation Oncology, Lin-Kou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Patients were requested to answer a series of questions from well-designed questionnaire. This was done twice , namely, first week at the beginning and 6 months after the entire course of radiotherapy.
Results : prior to cancer attack, 24 cases (2.8%) had no tabooed food while 651 cases (74.7%) had this taboo after experiencing malignancy. Tabooed food were usually of several kinds. Of these, 325 cases (37.3%) considered that nutritional supplements may help the growing of tumor masses while 140 cases (16.1%) suspected that cancer is communicable via taking food together with one another. From patients unable to prove a statistically significant correlation between a special subset of patients and the development of above-mentioned misconcepts toward the effect of certain food intake on the growing of malignant tumors (p ＞ 0.05). However, patients with age above 60 year old regarded that meats were toxic to normal human body and related to cancer development (p ＜ 0.05).
Discussion : During radiotherapy, each patient received nutrition education from dietitian and nursing staff concerning balanced diets. Yet, patients may still adopt their own view point of diet control. The chance for a curative attempt of management may be compromised provided that patients failed to receive adequate nutritional support during radiotherapy which may cause loss of body weight, impairment of general immunity or toxicity related interruption of treatment. Health professionals should, therefore, try their best to offer patients accurate knowledge of nutrition and to clarify the inappropriate taboos of foods.

關鍵字

放射線治療 ； 食物禁忌

並列摘要

Purpose : to evaluate factors related to tabooed foods in cancer patients and to study the motivation and concept of tabooed foods from patients?view point so that patients may accept correct knowledge about diet control and nutritional support via a positive communication skill.
Materials and Methods : From November of 1997 to October of 1999, data from 872 irradiated cancer patients were collected at Dept. of Radiation Oncology, Lin-Kou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Patients were requested to answer a series of questions from well-designed questionnaire. This was done twice , namely, first week at the beginning and 6 months after the entire course of radiotherapy.
Results : prior to cancer attack, 24 cases (2.8%) had no tabooed food while 651 cases (74.7%) had this taboo after experiencing malignancy. Tabooed food were usually of several kinds. Of these, 325 cases (37.3%) considered that nutritional supplements may help the growing of tumor masses while 140 cases (16.1%) suspected that cancer is communicable via taking food together with one another. From patients unable to prove a statistically significant correlation between a special subset of patients and the development of above-mentioned misconcepts toward the effect of certain food intake on the growing of malignant tumors (p ＞ 0.05). However, patients with age above 60 year old regarded that meats were toxic to normal human body and related to cancer development (p ＜ 0.05).
Discussion : During radiotherapy, each patient received nutrition education from dietitian and nursing staff concerning balanced diets. Yet, patients may still adopt their own view point of diet control. The chance for a curative attempt of management may be compromised provided that patients failed to receive adequate nutritional support during radiotherapy which may cause loss of body weight, impairment of general immunity or toxicity related interruption of treatment. Health professionals should, therefore, try their best to offer patients accurate knowledge of nutrition and to clarify the inappropriate taboos of foods.

並列關鍵字

Radiotherapy ； Food taboo