Despite improvements in medical care, about two-thirds of patients with Crohn’s disease develop complications requiring intestinal surgery at some time, and post-operative healing can be complicated.
Despite improvements in medical care, about two-thirds of patients with Crohn’s disease develop complications requiring intestinal surgery at some time, and post-operative healing can be complicated. Clinicians now report that pre-operative optimisation of patients with Crohn’s disease with exclusive enteral nutrition (liquid nutrition formula) is associated with reduced rates of post-operative abscess or intestinal leakage by nine-fold.
Only one of 38 patients (three percent) who received liquid feeding developed these complications, compared with 15 of 78 patients (20 percent) who went straight to surgery. Moreover, one-quarter of patients who received liquid feeding avoided surgery completely.
"Enteral nutrition is underutilised in adult patients with Crohn’s disease. Our study suggests that exclusive enteral nutrition may be used as a bridge to semi-elective, and arguably therefore, safer surgery in patients with complicated Crohn’s disease,” said Dr. Neel Heerasing, lead author of the Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics study.
Additional Information
Study: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apt.13934/full
About Journal
Alimentary Pharmacology & Therapeutics is an international journal of gastroenterology and hepatology. The journal accepts original papers and systematic reviews concerned with clinical gastroenterology, hepatology and endoscopy. AP&T is particularly interested in therapies and diagnostics, including all aspects of translation from bench to bedside: identification of novel therapeutic targets, epidemiology, clinical trials, drug safety and meta-analyses.
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