Patients with poor nutritional status before bladder cancer operation have a higher risk of postoperative

Patients with bladder cancer are two times more likely to have complications after a radical cystectomy procedure if they have a biomarker for poor nutritional status before the operation, according to study findings presented last week at the 2013 Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons. Surgeons from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center identified a potentially modifiable risk factor for such post-surgical problems: a low preoperative level of albumin, a marker of the protein level in the blood.

David C. Johnson, MD, MPH, lead author of the study and a senior urology resident at UNC School of Medicine, and colleagues evaluated the impact that patients