Pancreatic cancer surgery and nutrition management: a review of the current literature

Surgery remains the only curative treatment for pancreaticobiliary tumors. These patients typically present in a malnourished state. Various screening tools have been employed to help with preoperative risk stratification. Examples include the subjective global assessment (SGA), malnutrition universal screening tool (MUST), and nutritional risk index (NRI). Adequate studies have not been performed to determine if perioperative interventions, based on nutrition risk assessment, result in less morbidity and mortality. The routine use of gastric decompression with nasogastric sump tubes may be unnecessary following elective pancreatic resections. Instead, placement should be selective and employed on a case-by-case basis. A wide variety of feeding modalities are available, oral nutrition being the most effective. Artificial nutrition may be provided by temporary nasal tube (nasogastric, nasojejunal, or combined nasogastrojejunal tube) or surgically placed tube gastrostomy (GT), jejunostomy (JT), gastrojejunostomy tubes (GJT)], and intravenously (parenteral nutrition, PN). The optimal tube for enteral feeding cannot be determined based on current data. Each is associated with a specific set of complications. Dual lumen tubes may be useful in the presence of delayed gastric emptying (DGE) as the stomach may be decompressed while feeds are delivered to the jejunum. However, all feeding tubes placed in the small intestine, except direct jejunostomies, commonly dislodge and retroflex into the stomach. Jejunostomies are associated with less frequent, but more serious complications. These include intestinal torsion and bowel necrosis. PN is associated with septic, metabolic, and access-related complications and should be the feeding strategy of last-resort. Enteral feeds are clearly preferred over parental nutrition. A sound understanding of perioperative nutrition may improve patient outcomes. Patients undergoing pancreatic cancer surgery should undergo multidisciplinary nutrition screening and intervention, and the surgical/oncological team should include nutrition professionals in managing these patients in the perioperative period.