Objective To investigate nutritional status of patients with malignant tumor and explore whether there are differences in gender or age, as well as the value of patient-generated subjective global assessment (PG-SGA) in the nutritional assessment of cancer patients.

Methods PG-SGA was used to evaluate the nutritional status of 427 patients with malignant tumor, and the traditional nutritional indexes were also measured.

Results There was a significant difference in the incidence of malnutrition among elderly and non-elderly patients but there was no statistical difference between the genders. BMI, TSF, MAC and other indexes in different grades of PG-SGA (A, B, C) were significiantly different. In addition, it was found that there was a significantly negative correlation between the quantitative evaluation of PG-SGA and each index. Gender stratification results showed that there was a significantly negative correlation between the PG-SGA score and each index in male. However, there was no correlation between the PG-SGA score and Hb, MAMC in female, respectively.

Conclusion The incidence of malnutrition is different in patients with different ages. PG-SGA has a good correlation with most of the traditional nutritional indicators, but there is a gender difference.