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. 2023 Jul 17;15(14):3171.
doi: 10.3390/nu15143171.

Low-Bacterial Diet in Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review

Sofia Matteucci  1   2 , Giulia De Pasquale  1   2 , Manuela Pastore  1 , Emanuela Morenghi  1   2 , Veronica Pipitone  1 , Fanny Soekeland  3 , Riccardo Caccialanza  4 , Beatrice Mazzoleni  2 , Stefano Mancin  1   2
Affiliations

Low-Bacterial Diet in Cancer Patients: A Systematic Review

Sofia Matteucci et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

The low-bacterial diet (LBD) is a widely used dietary regimen to reduce the risk of food-borne infections in patients with neutropenic cancer, but its role is controversial due to its unclear benefits. The purpose of this study was to provide an updated analysis of the available evidence on the efficacy of the LBD to reduce the risk of infections, mortality rates, and quality of life (QoL) in neutropenic patients with cancer. A systematic literature search was conducted in the biomedical databases Cochrane Library, PubMed, CINHAL, and EMBASE. The process of the screening, selection, inclusion of articles, and assessment of risk of bias and methodological quality was conducted by two reviewers. Of the 1985 records identified, 12 were included. The LBD demonstrated heterogeneity in definition, composition, and initiation timing; moreover, the LBD did not demonstrate a reduction in infection and mortality rates compared to a free diet, showing a negative correlation with quality of life. The LBD, in addition to not bringing benefits in terms of reductions in infection and mortality rates, has been shown to worsen the quality of life due to the reduced palatability and limited variety of the food supply, negatively impacting nutritional status.

Keywords: cancer; hematological malignancies; low-bacterial diet; neutropenic diet; nutrition; safe food handling; systematic review.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
PRISMA flow chart of the process of article inclusion.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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