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The following is a summary of “Controlling nutritional status score as a sensitive instrument for malnutrition screening in systemic sclerosis – a retrospective study,” published in the March 2025 issue of Rheumatology International by Gajdecki et al.

Malnutrition is common in Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) but often overlooked.  

Researchers conducted a retrospective study to assess malnutrition in patients with SSc using Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool (MUST) and Controlling Nutritional Status (CONUT). 

They included 44 patients with SSc and assessed malnutrition using MUST and CONUT. Systemic involvement and laboratory parameters were analyzed. Statistical analysis used ANOVA Kruskal-Wallis with post-hoc tests for continuous variables and Chi2 tests for dichotomous variables. 

The results showed CONUT identified more patients with malnourished (n=27; 61.4%) than MUST (n=14; 34.1%). CONUT- patients who were undernourished had higher C-reactive protein (28.84 ± 31.72 vs. 2.91 ± 2.18, P=0.0126), higher red-cell distribution width (moderate-16.46 ± 2.52 vs. normal-13.90 ± 1.03, P=0.0150), lower hemoglobin (moderate-11.45 ± 2.28 vs. normal-13.49 ± 1.28, P=0.0426), and higher N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (moderate-3790.53 ± 6810.00 vs. normal-193.87 ± 265.16, P=0.0406). MUST did not confirm these findings. 

Investigators found a similar prevalence of malnutrition in other cohorts. They observed CONUT was more sensitive but may give false positives in patients with cardiological involvement. 

Source: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00296-025-05830-6