title: Prophylactic nutrition.
abstract: The potential clinical benefits of preoperative and postoperative enteral or parenteral nutritional support are reviewed. Special consideration is given to the problem of nutritional support for the cancer patient and to immunonutrition, a new research avenue in modular nutritional treatment. In the absence of uniformly accepted data regarding the use of prophylactic nutritional support, sound clinical judgement is still important. The simplest indications for the use of perioperative nutritional support are the following: patients without nutrition for 7 to 10 days; duration of illness anticipated to be longer than 10 days; malnutrition--more than 10% acute loss of usual body weight.
authors.affiliation: Division of General Surgery, Hôpital du Saint-Sacrement, Université Laval, Quebec.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Poulin
mesh_terms: D004750:Enteral Nutrition; D006801:Humans; D009748:Nutrition Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009747:Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D010288:Parenteral Nutrition; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative