can nutritional intervention modify it?
DT Dempsey, JL Mullen and GP Buzby Surgical Service, Philadelphia VA Medical Center, PA. Most clinicians subjectively feel that malnutrition in surgical patients is associated with poor clinical outcome. This overview provides a chronologic review of studies relating poor nutritional status to increased surgical morbidity. Techniques for identifying surgical patients with clinically important nutritional deficits are discussed. Retrospective and/or non-randomized clinical studies evaluating the efficacy of perioperative forced feeding are reviewed. These data suggest a possible role for preoperative nutritional support of selected malnourished surgical candidates and provide the rationale for a large-scale nutrition-intervention clinical trial.
