Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Enteral nutrition reduced postoperative complications but increased minor adverse effects in gastrointestinal cancer

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

OpenUrlCrossRefPubMedWeb of Science

QUESTION: In malnourished patients having elective surgery for gastrointestinal cancer, does enteral nutrition reduce postoperative complications when compared with parenteral nutrition?

Design

Randomised {allocation concealed}*, unblinded, controlled trial with follow up to discharge.

Setting

10 centres in Italy.

Patients

317 patients who were ≥18 years of age (mean age 64 y, 58% men) and had weight loss ≥10% of usual body weight in the previous 6 months, histologically confirmed gastrointestinal cancer, and major planned elective surgery. Exclusion criteria were hepatic, renal, or cardiac dysfunction; Karnofsky performance status <60; pregnancy; ongoing infection; or intestinal anastomosis of the large bowel without a diverting stoma. Follow up was complete.

Intervention

Patients were allocated to enteral …

View Full Text

Footnotes

  • Source of funding: Italian Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.

  • For correspondence: Dr F Bozzetti, Residenza Querce, Segrate (Milano), Italy. dottfb{at}tin.it

  • A modified version of this abstract appears in ACP Journal Club.