title: Early enteral nutrition in acutely ill patients: a systematic review.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the effect of early enteral nutrition on the outcome of critically ill and injured patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  MEDLINE, citation review of relevant primary and review articles, personal files, and contact with expert informants.
  
  
  METHODS
  Randomized, controlled studies that compared early with delayed enteral nutrition in hospitalized adult postoperative, trauma, head-injured, burn, or medical intensive care unit (ICU) patients. From 161 articles screened, 27 were identified as randomized, controlled trials comparing early with delayed enteral nutrition and were included for data extraction. Of these, 12 were excluded. None of the studies included medical ICU patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifteen studies containing 753 subjects were analyzed. Descriptive and outcome data were extracted independently from the articles by the two reviewers. Main outcome measures were infections, noninfectious complications, length of hospital stay, and mortality. The meta-analysis was performed using the random effects model.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Early enteral nutrition was associated with a significantly lower incidence of infections (relative risk reduction, 0.45; 95% confidence interval, 0.30-0.66; p =.00006; test for heterogeneity, p =.049) and a reduced length of hospital stay (mean reduction of 2.2 days; 95% confidence interval, 0.81-3.63 days; p =.004; test for heterogeneity, p =.0012). There were no significant differences in mortality or noninfectious complications between the two groups of patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of this meta-analysis support the experimental data demonstrating the benefit of the early initiation of enteral nutrition. The results of this meta-analysis must, however, be interpreted with some caution because of the significant heterogeneity between studies.
authors.affiliation: Critical Care Medicine, The Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
authors.forename: P E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Marik
authors.forename: G P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Zaloga
mesh_terms: D004750:Enteral Nutrition; D006801:Humans; D007239:Infections / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality; D007362:Intensive Care Units; D007902:Length of Stay; D011182:Postoperative Care / Q000379:methods*; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000401:mortality / Q000517:prevention & control; D012306:Risk; D013997:Time Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*