Early feeding tied to reduced length of hospital stay among patients with mild-to-moderate pancreatitis
TUESDAY, May 16, 2017 (HealthDay News) — For patients with acute pancreatitis, early feeding seems not to increase adverse events, and may reduce length of hospital stay for mild-to-moderate cases, according to a review published online May 15 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Valerie M. Vaughn, M.D., from Michigan Medicine and VA Ann Arbor Health System, and colleagues compared length of hospital stay, mortality, and readmission among adults hospitalized with pancreatitis who received early versus delayed feeding. Data were included from 11 randomized trials, which included 948 patients. Seven of the trials included patients with mild-to-moderate pancreatitis, and four included patients with predicted severe pancreatitis.
Routes for early feeding included oral, nasogastric, nasojejunal, and oral or nasoenteric (four, two, four, and one study, respectively). The researchers found that early feeding correlated with reduced length of stay in four of seven studies among patients with mild-to-moderate pancreatitis. No studies showed an increase in adverse events with early feeding, although other outcomes were heterogeneous and variably reported. Limited evidence showed no significant difference in outcomes for early versus delayed feeding among patients with severe pancreatitis.
“Limited data suggest that early feeding in patients with acute pancreatitis does not seem to increase adverse events and, for patients with mild-to-moderate pancreatitis, may reduce length of hospital stay,” the authors write.
One author disclosed ties to Doximity and Jvion.
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