Meta-analysis of immunonutrition in major abdominal surgery : Immunonutrition in major abdominal surgery

To assess the impact of postoperative complications on full in-hospital costs per case. Rising expenses for complex medical procedures combined with constrained resources represent a major challenge. The severity of postoperative complications reflects surgical outcomes. The magnitude of the cost created by negative outcomes is unclear. Morbidity of 1200 consecutive patients undergoing major surgery from 2005 to 2008 in a tertiary, high-volume center was assessed by a validated, complication score system. Full in-hospital costs were collected for each patient. Statistical analysis was performed using a multivariate linear regression model adjusted for potential confounders. This study population included 393 complex liver/bile duct surgeries, 110 major pancreas operations, 389 colon resections, and 308 Roux-en-Y gastric bypasses. The overall 30-day mortality rate was 1.8%, whereas morbidity was 53.8%. Patients with an uneventful course had mean costs per case of US$ 27,946 (SD US$ 15,106). Costs increased dramatically with the severity of postoperative complications and reached the mean costs of US$ 159,345 (SD US$ 151,191) for grade IV complications. This increase in costs, up to 5 times the cost of a similar operation without complications, was observed for all types of investigated procedures, although the magnitude of the increase varied, with the highest costs in patients undergoing pancreas surgery. This study demonstrates the dramatic impact of postoperative complications on full in-hospital costs per case and that complications are the strongest indicator of costs. Furthermore, the study highlights a relevant savings capacity for major surgical procedures, and supports all efforts to lower negative events in the postoperative course.

Perioperative nutrition with specialized enteral diets improves outcome when compared with standard formulas. A post-hoc analysis suggested preoperative administration as the most important period. Thus, we designed a study to understand prospectively whether preoperative supplementation could be as efficacious as the perioperative approach and superior to a conventional treatment (no artificial nutrition) in reducing postoperative infections and length of hospital stay. A total of 305 patients with preoperative weight loss <10% and cancer of the gastrointestinal tract were randomized to receive the following: (1) oral supplementation for 5 days before surgery with 1 L/day of a formula enriched with arginine, omega-3 fatty acids, and RNA, with no nutritional support given after surgery (preoperative group, n = 102); (2) the same preoperative treatment plus postoperative jejunal infusion with the same enriched formula (perioperative group, n = 101); and (3) no artificial nutrition before and after surgery (conventional group; n = 102). The 3 groups were comparable for all baseline and surgical characteristics. Intention-to-treat analysis showed a 13.7% incidence of postoperative infections in the preoperative group, 15.8% in the perioperative group, and 30.4% in the conventional group (P = 0.006 vs. preoperative; P = 0.02 vs. perioperative). Length of hospital stay was 11.6 +/- 4.7 days in the preoperative group, 12.2 +/- 4.1 days in the perioperative group, and 14.0 +/- 7.7 days in the conventional group (P = 0.008 vs. preoperative and P = 0.03 vs. perioperative). Preoperative supplementation is as effective as perioperative administration in improving outcome. Both strategies seem superior to the conventional approach.

Few data are available that systematically describe rates and trends of postoperative mortality for fairly large, unselected patient populations. This population-based study uses a registry of 3.7 million surgical procedures in 102 hospitals in The Netherlands during 1991-2005. Patients older than 20 yr who underwent an elective, nonday case, open surgical procedure were enrolled. Patient data included main (discharge) diagnosis, secondary diagnoses, dates of admission and discharge, death during admission, operations, age, sex, and a limited number of comorbidities classified according to the International Classification of Diseases 9th revision Clinical Modification. The main outcome measure was postoperative all-cause mortality. Univariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were applied to evaluate the relationship between type of surgery and the main outcome. Postoperative all-cause death was observed in 67,879 patients (1.85%). In a model based on a classification into 11 main surgical categories, breast surgery was associated with lowest mortality (adjusted incidence, 0.07%), and vascular surgery was associated with highest mortality (adjusted incidence, 5.97%). In a model based on 36 surgical subcategories, the adjusted mortality ranged from 0.07% for hernia nuclei pulposus surgery to 18.5% for liver transplant. The c-index of the 36-category model was 0.88, which was significantly (P < 0.001) higher than the c-index that was associated with the simple surgical classification (low vs. high risk) in the commonly used Revised Cardiac Risk Index (c-index, 0.83). This population-based study provided a detailed and contemporary overview of postoperative mortality for the entire surgical spectrum, which may act as reference standard for surgical outcome in Western populations.