Cooked and Noncooked Diets in Patients with Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) Undergoing Remission Induction Therapy
Slides from the journal article and transcribed comments from a recent interview with Steven D Gore, MD (10/8/09) below
Presentation discussed in this issue:
Gardner A et al. Randomized comparison of cooked and noncooked diets in patients undergoing remission induction therapy for acute myeloid leukemia. J Clin Oncol 2008;26(35):5684-8. Abstract
STEVEN D GORE, MD: A whole mythology has existed for many moons now that patients with AML and neutropenia in a protected environment should not eat raw foods or vegetables, but it is based on someone’s hunch 30-some years ago. This limits patients in terms of what they can eat, and the question arises whether that inconvenience is worth imposing on the patient.
I think this is a great idea for a randomized study. They found that 35 percent of patients in the study arm allowed to consume raw fruits and vegetables developed major infections versus 29 percent of patients in the study arm that only consumed fruits and vegetables in cooked form. This difference was not statistically significant. This is great news for patients because they should be able to eat whatever they want. This has been our practice at Hopkins. It may seem like a small issue, but when you are a patient in the hospital for 35 days and you like fruit, it is nice to be able to eat it.
Dr Gore is Professor of Oncology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.