The role of nutrition intervention in surgical settings is constantly developing and evolving. Immunonutrition represents a viable option to reduce perioperative and postoperative complications in surgical oncology. However, as far as we know, little research has been conducted in the orthopedic field. With this review, we aim to summarize the state of the art in the application of immune-enhanced compounds to surgical, orthopedic, and traumatic patients. The PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines were adopted. A comprehensive search was carried out using the PubMed (MEDLINE), EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases. All the studies dealing with immunonutrition fed to traumatic and orthopedic patients were pooled, the data were extracted, and the studies were discussed. A total of eight studies were included: six focused on trauma surgery and two on elective orthopedic surgery. The epidemiological characteristics of participants and the assessment of results were reported. Data were analyzed using R software (2020; R Core Team). Based on the current available literature, a positive impact of immunonutrition in orthopedic and trauma surgical settings was registered. All studies analyzed showed the favorable impact of the immunonutrition diet on clinical outcomes. The full effect of this type of nutrition and its different applications in the orthopedic and traumatic fields should be critically investigated through more extensive randomized controlled trials.
Keywords: immunonutrition; nutrition; orthopedics; surgery.