title: Strategies and needs for nutritional support in cancer surgery.
abstract: Nutritional therapy in tumor patients undergoing surgery should be regarded as a supportive therapy. They render the operation tolerable or even feasible, and they have a positive effect on postoperative progress and wound healing. Malnourished patients definitely profit from nutritional therapy. However, the effectiveness of a nutritional regimen should not be overestimated: postoperative progress, wound healing, and complication rate depend not only on nutritional status but also on the nature of the operation, age, and preoperative treatment. As a rule, parenteral feeding is superior to enteral feeding directly after surgery. Enteral nutritive regimens are to be favored when long-term feeding is indicated: in this case the advantages of this type of feeding prevail.
authors.affiliation: Section für Chirurgische Onkologie, Universität Heidelberg, FRG.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schlag
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Decker-Baumann
mesh_terms: D015992:Body Mass Index; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000601:surgery*; D009748:Nutrition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000517:prevention & control*; D009752:Nutritional Status; D010288:Parenteral Nutrition; D011182:Postoperative Care; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011300:Preoperative Care; D011446:Prospective Studies