Introduction: Enteral nutrition (EN) is important in the management of critically illness. Yet, the best route (e.g. pre-pyloric or post-pyloric) for EN in critically ill patients remains to be investigated, especially in specific surgical patients group. In addition, EN could be associated with a higher risk of aspiration pneumonia. Therefore, we evaluate the effect of various EN routes in surgical critically ill perforated peptic ulcer (PPU) patients who underwent surgery and required mechanical ventilation.
Method: We collected data of surgical critically ill PPU patients admitted to intensive care unit. The patients were managed with appropriate care bundle and program. To reduce the impact of surgery types, we excluded those who had received other surgical procedures and included patients that only received simple closure. Patients were classified into nasogastric and jejunostomy feeding groups. The demographics, severity scores (e.g.: APACHE II, SOFA, and POSSUM), body mass index (BMI), comorbidities, ventilator days, use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), pneumonia occurrence, mortality and complications were collected for analysis.
Results: A total of 136 critically ill PPU patients that received surgery and mechanical ventilation were enrolled. There were 53 patients in NG group and 83 patients in FJ group. There were no differences in demographics, severity scores, BMI, comorbidities, ventilator days, use of PPIs, pneumonia occurrence, mortalities and complications between groups.
Conclusion: Our study indicates that there are no differences in mortalities and pneumonia occurrence using nasogastric or feeding jejunostomy in surgical critically ill PPU patients underwent surgery. However, further studies are required.