title: Impact of disease severity on gastric residual volume in critical patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate whether illness severity has an impact on gastric residual volume (GRV) in medical critically ill patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  Medical intensive care unit (ICU) patients requiring nasogastric feeding were enrolled. Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score was assessed immediately preceding the start of the study. Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation (APACHE) II scores were recorded on the first, fourth, seventh, and fourteenth day of the study period. GRV was measured every 4 h during enteral feeding. The relationship between mean daily GRV and SOFA scores and the correlation between mean daily GRV and mean APACHE II score of all patients were evaluated and compared.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Of the 61 patients, 43 patients were survivors and 18 patients were non-survivors. The mean daily GRV increased as SOFA scores increased (P < 0.001, analysis of variance). Mean APACHE II scores of all patients correlated with mean daily GRV (P = 0.011, Pearson correlation) during the study period. Patients with decreasing GRV in the first 2 d had better survival than patients without decreasing GRV (P = 0.017, log rank test).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  GRV is higher in more severely ill medical ICU patients. Patients with decreasing GRV had lower ICU mortality than patients without decreasing GRV.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, China. cwhsu2003@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Chien-Wei
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Hsu
authors.forename: Shu-Fen
authors.initials: SF
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: David Lin
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Shoa-Lin
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Kam-Fai
authors.initials: KF
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Hsiu-Hua
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Hung-Ju
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016638:Critical Illness; D004750:Enteral Nutrition; D005746:Gastric Emptying / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007441:Intubation, Gastrointestinal; D008297:Male; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013270:Stomach / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D015996:Survival Rate