Enteral nutrition: The preferred therapy in all patients with a functional gastrointestinal tract

摘要

Providing adequate nutrition for patients is a significant challenge. And yet all patients, without exception, have the right to the optimal nutrition intervention that allows them the best chances for recovery. This is particularly evident in patients who cannot spontaneously eat and need alternate nutrient delivery routes, as observed in many of our hospitals and institutions. Two forms of nutrition intervention in patients who cannot eat have evolved in the last 40 years. In 1968, Dr Stanley Dudrick, under the guidance of Dr Jonathan Rhoads introduced Total Parenteral Nutrition (TPN), a therapy that completely bypasses the gastrointestinal tract and delivers nutrition directly into the circulation. This therapy provided a desperately needed option for patients without a functional gastrointestinal tract, and has undoubtedly saved millions of lives worldwide. TPN is indeed one of the most fundamental technological and scientific breakthroughs in medicine of the 20th century. In parallel, Enteral Nutrition (EN) evolved to deliver nutrition intervention directly into the gastrointestinal tract, most often through a feeding tube Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/full/10.1185/03007995.2011.605657