Peer-reviewed article
<i>From Kitchen to Clinic</i>: Study protocol for a family-centered, food-as-medicine approach using medically tailored meals and caregiver coaching in pediatric oncology care.
Milliron BJ, Schlechter H, Muir C, Moss C, Henstenburg JA et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study protocol describes a 12-week intervention called 'From Kitchen to Clinic' for families of children undergoing cancer treatment. The intervention combines medically tailored meals delivered to homes with coaching for caregivers to help improve children's nutrition during cancer therapy. The study will test whether the intervention is feasible and acceptable for 60 families at a children's hospital, measuring outcomes like children's diet quality, weight, and how well families manage food security.
Key points
- Children undergoing cancer treatment face high risk of malnutrition and poor diet quality due to treatment side effects and disrupted appetite
- Caregivers experience substantial burden, time constraints, and nutrition insecurity while supporting children's nutritional needs
- The intervention combines medically tailored meal delivery with caregiver coaching over 12 weeks in an intensive then tapered schedule
- The study will evaluate feasibility, acceptability, and adherence as primary outcomes
- Secondary outcomes include dietary intake, weight and body mass changes, treatment tolerance, food security, and caregiver burden
Limitations
This is a study protocol describing a planned feasibility study with no results yet reported. The single-arm design without a comparison group means outcomes cannot establish whether the intervention causes improvements, only whether it is feasible to deliver.
Abstract
Background Children undergoing cancer treatment are at high risk for malnutrition, poor diet quality, and early cardiometabolic risk due to treatment-related side effects, disrupted appetite, and household-level barriers to healthy eating. Caregivers play a central role in nutritional support during treatment but often experience substantial burden, time constraints, and nutrition insecurity. Food-as-medicine strategies, including medically tailored meals (MTMs), have shown promise in adult populations but remain underexplored in pediatric oncology, particularly during active treatment and within family-centered models. Objective The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and adherence of From Kitchen to Clinic, a 12-week, family-centered food-as-medicine intervention that integrates MTM delivery with caregiver coaching for caregivers of children undergoing cancer treatment. Secondary objectives include collecting exploratory data on patient dietary intake, weight and lean body mass trajectories, treatment tolerance, household food and nutrition security, and caregiver burden and distress to inform a future definitive trial. Methods This prospective, single-arm feasibility study will enroll 60 caregiver-child dyads (N = 120) recruited from three outpatient pediatric oncology clinics at a large children's hospital. The 12-week intervention includes an intensive phase (weeks 1-8) with weekly MTM delivery and caregiver coaching, followed by a tapered phase (weeks 9-12) with reduced meal frequency and bi-weekly coaching. Feasibility outcomes include recruitment, retention, assessment completion, intervention adherence, and acceptability, evaluated against predefined progression criteria. Exploratory outcomes will be assessed at baseline and at 3, 6, and 12 months post-intervention using validated dietary, anthropometric, clinical, and caregiver-reported measures. Trial registration NCT07454902.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- From Kitchen to Clinic: a 12-week family-centered food-as-medicine intervention combining medically tailored meal delivery with caregiver coaching
- Population
- Caregivers of children undergoing active cancer treatment at pediatric oncology clinics (planned N=60 dyads)
Key finding
Study protocol describes planned evaluation of feasibility, acceptability, and adherence outcomes against predefined progression criteria