title: [Complications of enteral nutrition at home. Results of a multicentre trial].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  In spite of the increasing number of home enteral nutrition (HEN) patients, only few articles had reported the frequency of complications related to this treatment. Our multicentric study analyzes the HEN complications in relation to access device and time of treatment.
  
  
  METHODS
  92 HEN patients from 8 hospitals were randomly selected. Patients were distributed in relation to the time of treatment and access device (nasogastric tube and percutaneous or surgical gastrostomies). After an educational program, they were filled in an initial questionnaire and repeated it the days 15 and 30. They received a mean of 1650 Kcal of enteral solution. A total of 2760 HEN prospective days were analyzed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  In prospective study 42% of patients had some complication (112 episodes). The most frequent were gastrointestinal (55%) and mechanical (29%); 0.16 complications of patient-year were registered. The most common complications were: extraction (15%), constipation (13%), vomiting (12%) and diarrhoea (10%). The gastrostomy group had more gastrointestinal complications. In retrospective evaluation, percutaneous gastrostomy group had the lowest ratio of complications and nasogastric tube group required more tube replacements (4 vs 2) and had 1.96 episodes/patient (percutaneous group 1.85 and surgical gastrostomy 3.1 episodes/patient).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  HEN is safe with low incidence of complications. An adequate educational program is very important and we expect, in the future, to establish an proper National Home Care System.
authors.affiliation: Hospital Universitario La Paz, Unidad de Nutrición Clínica, Po de la Castellana, 261, 28046, Madrid. nutricion@hulp.insalud.es
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gómez Candela
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cos Blanco
authors.forename: P P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: García Luna
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pérez de la Cruz
authors.forename: L M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Luengo Pérez
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Iglesias Rosado
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vázquez
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Koning
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Planas
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Camarero
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wanden-Berghe
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chamorro
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mellado
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Morera
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D005774:Gastrostomy / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007441:Intubation, Gastrointestinal / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016331:Parenteral Nutrition, Home / Q000009:adverse effects* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome