Onkológia 2/2011

Parenteral nutrition in malnourished patients

Parenteral nutrition became a routine therapeutic option in malnourished patients, if conventional nutritional enteral support is not effective. Cachexia and malnutrition prolong the wound healing, contribute to immunosuppression, increase morbidity and the cost of treatment. Using of a malnutrition protocol as a screening tool is necessary to sort out malnourished patients. Parenteral nutrition is therefore an important part of the multimodal therapy and from the medical and the ethical point of view is a great mistake not to feed a patient.

Keywords: malnutrition, malnutrition screening, parenteral nutrition.