The demand of cancer patients to anticipate the management of undernutrition: is a nutrition prehabilitation before treatment conceivable as supportive care to improve quality of life? Argument for the NEHOTEL concept.

PurposeOur translational research team in nutrition and cancer works to identify changes in eating and cooking behaviors since the diagnosis. Educational tools have been standardized as supportive care workshops in culinary practice and nutrition to enhance quality of life with regards to symptoms associated with treatment. Ongoing work with a cluster of expert patients led to the conclusion that such tools are essential but may be addressed too late, once symptoms are present and undernutrition is set. We thus investigated the concept of an early nutritional and multimodal prehabilitation program to improve quality of life. MethodsOver a period of one year, 10 patients, together with researchers and caregivers co-constructed the NEHOTEL educational program. The relevance of this program was then confronted to the practical, medical and ethical points of view. ResultsAn innovative multimodal supportive care 5-days course has been validated with our panel of expert patients. In this setting, new cancer patients will be invited to a non-medical hotel facility specifically designed for this project. ConclusionsIn the synopsis of the cancer care path as currently conceived in France, the early positioning of this intervention, which formalizes the need for unmet supportive care of patients in nutrition, raises questions about its medico-technical feasibility and the chances of visualizing a benefit on the quality of life. NEHOTEL(R) concept design is the outcome of this translational work, supported by an ongoing clinical feasibility study.