Pancreatic Cancer: Sharing a Nutrition Education Project with the Patients and Their Care Givers

Background: Improving nutrition does not just mean to follow a strict diet, but also to discover new habits, becoming able to improve our own well-being. In the therapeutic diagnostic pathway of pancreatic cancer, it is important to involve not only the medical and nursing staff, but also the family members: together it is possible to settle and share behaviors to maintain a good health, exploiting energies from food. Material and methods: In March 2016, the Medical Oncology and the Dietology Service of the City of Health and Science of Turin (Citta' della Salute e della Scienza), with the support of a private Association for pancreatic cancer patients, presented the project “Pancreatic cancer: nutrition education in the therapeutic pathway for patients and their care givers”. It provided a multidisciplinary training course for medical and nursing staff, a cooking class for patients and their families and a database of involved patients. Results: In November 2016, the 1st edition of the course “The nutrition management of the patient with pancreatic cancer” was opened to the oncology, radiotherapy surgery and medical and nursing staff. The course was organized in a 8-hour study day. At the end of each session, an interactive discussion allowed the professionals to debate about the key points of the event. In the same month, the cooking class was organized too, involving for four hours 15 patients and their family members, with dietitians, oncologists and dieticians as well. The practical course was held in an equipped kitchen, after a brief lesson about food, spices, various types of cooking and food preservation. All the participants got a brochure with dietary advice and recipes presented during the course. All participants were asked to write a feedback about the event. Conclusion: In recent times there has been an increase of the attention on the links between food and health from patients and family members. It is necessary to convey to the patient and to the care giver a message that follows validated guidelines, with the aim of improving the quality of life. We believe that some decisions on medical actions affecting patients and their families can be shared with the Patient Associations. The success of this small project (we have told you) convinced us to continue in the patients undergoing high enteric gastrointestinal cancer, with a further study with the involvement of the Oncology Network Piemonte-Valle d'Aosta and other hospital companies.