High mortality in hospitalized elderly patients with feeding tube placement.
OBJECTIVE
We investigated the influence of feeding tube placement on survival in hospitalized elderly patients.


METHODS
To assess long-term mortality in an inception cohort and the influence of feeding tube placement on survival, one hundred six hospitalized elderly patients from a nursing home were followed up through and after the index hospitalization for placement of a feeding tube and mortality. Cox regression hazards model was constructed for both univariate and multivariate analyses.


RESULTS
A feeding tube was placed in 15% (16/106) of the study patients during the index hospitalization. Median survival of the 106 patients was 381 days. A total of 92 patients (87%) survived the index hospitalization, and 52 (49%) were still alive at the last follow-up. In the multivariate survival model which included older age, hip fracture history, admitting diagnosis of pneumonia, and tube feeding placement, only feeding tube placement (hazard ratio, 2.29; 95% confidence interval, 1.22-4.33) was significantly associated with higher mortality.


CONCLUSIONS
In hospitalized elderly patients from nursing home, feeding tube placement may be a risk factor for mortality.
Tokuda
Yasuharu
Y
Department of Medicine, Okinawa Chubu Hospital, Gushikawa.
Koketsu
Hideki
H
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D004750:Enteral Nutrition / Q000401:mortality*; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007564:Japan / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D009735:Nursing Homes; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D012307:Risk Factors; D015996:Survival Rate