A comparison of the effects of intermittent and continuous nasogastric feeding on the oxygen consumption and nitrogen balance of patients after major head and neck surgery |
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Authors: | I T Campbell R P Morton J A Cole C H Raine L M Shapiro P M Stell |
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Abstract: | Ten patients were fed by nasogastric tube for 5 days after major surgery of the head and neck. Five were fed by continuous infusion 24 h/day using an enteral nutrition pump and five were fed comparable quantities by 2-h bolus administration between 0600 and 2200 h. Those fed by bolus had lower resting oxygen consumption on the 4th and 5th postoperative days and better cumulative nitrogen balance over the 5 days than the continuously fed group. It appears that metabolically it may be better to use an intermittent feeding regimen than a continuous one when feeding patients postoperatively via a nasogastric tube. |
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