Table 3.

Criteria to consider when deciding on nutritional and metabolic interventions

Benefit possible	Benefit uncertain
Ongoing anticancer treatment	Approaching end of life
No or only minimal inflammation or inflammation responsive to treatment	Persistent, severe and unresponsive inflammation
No or only slow and mild weight loss	Rapid and severe weight loss refractory to anticancer treatment
Stable or only slowly progressing cancer	Rapidly progressing cancer without reasonable treatment options
Good chance of intervention to improve the patient's well-being	No realistic chance that the intervention will improve the situation of the patient
Patient is aware of the prognosis and of the positive/negative effects of the intervention	Patient is not fully aware of the prognosis or the positive/negative effects of the intervention
Strong wish of the patient to accomplish or reach an individual goal	Patient is preparing for dying
Patient is motivated and feels very little inconvenience considering the planned nutritional intervention	Patient feels the nutritional intervention to be burdensome and is unmotivated/unwilling to start the intervention
Patient is able and motivated to be physically active	Immobilised patient without urge to be or to become active
Severely impaired food tolerance	Only mildly impaired food intake