The prevalence of malnutrition in oncology patients is around 40%-80% and its occurrence is associated with higher mortality and more medical expenditures. The nutritional status of oncology patients is an important factor affecting treatment outcome and prognosis. Accurate prediction of human energy requirements is a prerequisite for nutritional health counseling and clinical nutrition support. The indirect calorimetry IC method is often considered the gold standard for assessing resting energy expenditure REE . Due to substantial geographical differences differences in the level of medical development the IC method requires not only specialized equipment but also specialized personnel to perform it and therefore it is still not possible to perform IC measurements for all patients in accordance with the guidelines. It has been found that different cancer types stages and treatments have different effects on energy expenditure and conflicting findings exist. The estimation of energy expenditure and demand of cancer patients still remains to be studied. Therefore it is important to evaluate and select predictive equations for energy expenditure suitable for patients with different types of cancers. This study reviews the characteristics of energy metabolism of cancer patients common energy expenditure prediction formulas and focuses on sorting out the relevant research progress of energy expenditure and prediction formulas for patients with various tumor diseases. Finally this study also proposes the direction and outlook of future research.