Background and objectives: Following major upper gastrointestinal surgical procedures, early enteral nutrition to the jejunum is strongly recommended, either through a nasoenteric tube or a percutaneous transperitoneal jejunal feeding tube (jejunostomy). However, to date there has been no consensus as to the best enteral feeding strategy. Our aim was to determine the safest and most efficacious early enteral nutrition supplement strategy following major upper gastrointestinal operations.
Methods and study design: PubMed, Embase and Cochrane Library databases were systematically searched for comparison of trials. The primary outcome analyzed was length of postoperative hospital stay, and secondary outcomes were: duration of enteral nutrition, time to resumption of normal oral intake, and tube dislodgement, tube leakage and tube obstruction complications. Weighted mean differences (WMDs) and risk ratios (RRs) were calculated with 95% confidence intervals (CI).
Results: A total of 5 studies were included with 420 patients in all. The length of hospital stay, duration of enteral nutrition and the time to resumption of normal oral intake were all significantly shorter in the nasoenteric group (p<0.05). There was no increase or reduction in the RR of tube obstruction between the nasoenteric and jejunostomy groups (p=0.5). The RR of tube dislodgement was increased in the nasoenteric group (p<0.05) while the RR of tube leakage was increased in the jejunostomy group (p<0.05).
Conclusions: A nasoenteric tube is more likely to be effective in early postoperative enteral feeding following major upper gastrointestinal operations.