SARCOPENIA IN CANCER PATIENTS UNDERGOING PALLIATIVE CARE: AN INTEGRATIVE LITERATURE REVIEW

Objective: 'the study's main purpose has been to analyze the scientific production addressing the consequences of sarcopenia in cancer patients undergoing palliative care. Methods: It is an integrative literature review. The bibliographic search was performed through electronic search in the following databases available in the Virtual Health Library: PubMed, LILACS, and SciELO, using the controlled descriptors "sarcopenia", "palliative care" and "cancer", associated with the Boolean operators "AND" and "OR". Results: There were included 18 articles, from which three thematic approaches were elaborated addressing the prevalence and factors associated with sarcopenia, and its influence on survival, quality of life, and symptoms in cancer patients undergoing palliative care. Conclusion: Sarcopenia in these patients has a high prevalence, leads to a higher risk of toxicity to palliative chemotherapy with impact on people's survival, furthermore, it is also related to symptoms increased burden, then contributing to undermining the quality of life of such patients. Hence, a further discussion visa-vis combating sarcopenia during ontological disease is required.