We want to share this Cochrane review: Preoperative nutrition therapy in people undergoing gastrointestinal surgery.
Objectives: To assess the effects of preoperative nutritional therapy compared to usual care in people undergoing gastrointestinal surgery.
Main results: 16 randomized trials with 2164 participants were included.
Participants underwent surgery for both upper and lower gastrointestinal cancer and received various interventions, including parenteral nutrition, enteral nutrition, immune-enhancing nutrition, or standard oral nutrition supplements. All included RCTs included mixed groups of well‐nourished and malnourished participants.
- It is uncertain if parenteral nutrition has any effect on the number of participants who had a non‐infectious complication, infectious complication, or length of hospital stay. Very low‐certainty evidence.
- The evidence is very uncertain about the effect of enteral nutrition on the number of participants with infectious complications after surgery or length of hospital stay. Very low-certainty evidence.
- Immune‐enhancing nutrition compared to controls may result in little to no effect on the number of participants experiencing a non‐infectious complication, infectious complications, or length of hospital stay. Low‐certainty evidence.
- Standard oral nutrition supplements may result in little to no effect on number of participants with a non‐infectious complication or the length of hospital stay. Low‐certainty evidence.
- Sensitivity analysis based on malnourished and weight‐losing participants found oral nutrition supplements may result in a slight reduction in infections.
Authors' conclusion: We were unable to determine if parenteral nutrition, enteral nutrition, immune‐enhancing nutrition, or standard oral nutrition supplements have any effect on the clinical outcomes due to very low‐certainty evidence. There is some evidence that standard oral nutrition supplements may have no effect on complications. Sensitivity analysis showed standard oral nutrition supplements probably reduced infections in weight‐losing or malnourished participants.
Access publication here: https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008879.pub3
