Gastroenterology
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
A randomized controlled trial of preoperative oral supplementation with a specialized diet in patients with gastrointestinal cancer.
Perioperative nutrition with specialized enteral diets improves outcome when compared with standard formulas. A post-hoc analysis suggested preoperative administration as the most important period. Thus, we designed a study to understand prospectively whether preoperative supplementation could be as efficacious as the perioperative approach and superior to a conventional treatment (no artificial nutrition) in reducing postoperative infections and length of hospital stay. ⋯ Preoperative supplementation is as effective as perioperative administration in improving outcome. Both strategies seem superior to the conventional approach.