La intervención nutricional incluyó seguimiento y ajuste dietético diario, dependiendo de sus condiciones médicas subyacentes, estado nutricional, requerimientos, preferencias alimentarias, rechazo, intolerancias, cultura alimentaria y vía de alimentación: oral y soporte nutricional ABSTRACT Introduction: Hospital malnutrition is a highly prevalent process with multiple causes. Early nutritional intervention improves the prognosis of affected patients and reduces health costs. Objective: To estimate the cost-effectiveness of routine care compared with early nutritional intervention, in patients at nutritional risk, in a high complexity university hospital betweenMarch and October 2012. Materials and methods: Economic evaluation study in 165 adult hospitalized medical and surgical specialty patients. The information from a quasi-experimental intervention study conducted in 2012 was taken as a reference. Patients were stratified by intervention group according to days of hospital stay, complications and nutritional status; health costs were also obtained. Results: For the early nutritional intervention group compared to routine care, the