PATIENT-GENERATED SUBJECTIVE GLOBAL ASSESSMENT (PG-SGA): A REVIEW

Abstract

The present investigation, Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) and its different variants are being widely used as a nutritional status or risk assessment tool in clinical and hospital practice for myriads of disease including life-threatening one such as cancer, chronic kidney diseases. SGA is based on measurement and observation of several parameters such as weight change, dietary intake change, gastrointestinal symptoms, functional capacity, co morbidities related to nutritional condition and physical examination. However, the tool is not devoid of limitation and is being constantly improved for the optimization of its use in various other diseases. Therefore, clinicians need an easy to use and interpret, low cost, reliable tool to assess nutritional status. The PG-SGA is a more sensitive tool than other versions of SGA and is successfully being used as a screening tool in diseases like cancer, tuberculosis, HIV and chronic kidney disease (CKD) etc. According to the theory of “reverse epidemiology”, a patient with better nutritional status is supposed to have increased scope of survival. Therefore, it is increasingly being used patients who are at the pre-dialysis stage or being treated with dialysis. The review will summarize the basics of the nutritional assessment tool, its indications, and limitation of use in clinical practice etc. Moreover, the review will summarize the recommendations for use of PG-SGA in CKD and a brief review of existing literature to understand the scope of use and future perspective of the application of this tool for using in CKD patient population.